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LALLA ROOKH 



AN 



ORIENTAL ROMANCE 






BY 



THOMAS MOORE 




BOSTON 
ESTES AND LAURIAT 
1 88s 



Copyright, 188^, 
By Estes and Lauriat. 



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John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



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Moore's House, in which Lalla Rookh was written. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

DRAWN, REPRODUCED, AND PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF 
FRED H. ALLEN. 



Azim W. B. Closson Cover 

Lalla Rookh E. H. Garrett .... Frontispiece 

L'Avenir Hy. Saiidham Title 

Vignette B. Irwin Contents 

Moore's House F. T. Merrill ix 

Aurungzebe and Abdalla J. Wells Champney i 

In Freedom Robert Blum 4 

In Captivity Robert Blum 5 

" Held in his handakitar" y. Wells Champney 8 

Sub-title J' A. Fraser 9 

Zelica W. B. Closson 10 

The Great Mokanna Hy. Satzdham . . . -. . . . 11 

" Yon warrior youth " Hy. Sandha7ii 14 

" And captive to the Greek " Hy. Sandham 15 

" When down the mount he trod " (p. 12) . . . Hy. Sandham 18 

" One among those chosen maids " Hy. Sandham 19 



( X ) 

PAGE 

"In widowhood of soul" (p. 21) Frank Myrick 22 

" Azim is dead ! " (p. 21) Frajik Myrick 23 

"'T was from a brilliant banquet" IV. L. Taylor 26 

" To the dim charnel-house " W. L. Taylor 27 

" To meet Mokanna at his place of prayer " . . . S. G. McCutcheon 30 

" Upon his couch Mokanna lay" S. G. McCutcheon 31 

" Oh, my lost soul! " S. G. McCutcheon 34 

" Nightly my Genii come and fill these urns " . . W.L.Taylor 35 

" With lips apart " (p- 37) Walter Satterlee 38 

" Beware, young raving thing ! " Walter Satterlee 39 

Still Life W. L. Taylor 42 

" He raised his veil " Hy. Sandham 43 

A Prince Persian 46 

" Young Azira roams bewilder'd " F. T. Merrill 47 

Lanterns y- A. Fraser 50 

Persian IVIotto in Tapestry M.C.Allen 51 

" A group of female forms advance " (p. 53) . . Hy. Sandham 54 

" Touch'd a preluding strain " F. T. Merrill 55 

" A spirit there is, whose fragrant sigh " . . . . Walter Satterlee 58 

" Impatient of a scene " Walter Satterlee 59 

" Unconsciously he opes his arms " Hy. Sandham 62 

" Look up, my Zelica ! " Hy. Sandham 63 

" Hist ! come near " Hy. Sandham 66 

" With thee ! oh, bliss " (p. 69) Hy. Sandham 67 

" Thy oath, thy oath ! " Hy. Sandham 70 

Persian Tile W. L. Taylor 71 

" Whose are the gilded tents ?" (p. 73) .... E.H.Garrett 74 

" Who leads this mighty army ? " E. H. Garrett 75 

" Such was the wild and miscellaneous host ! " . . W. St. y. Harper 78 

" On, Swords of God ! " W.St.y. Harper 79 

Sword-Bearer Persian 82 

"But safe as yet that spirit of evil lives " .... W. St. y. Harper 83 

" Of all his harem " (p. 84) W. St. y. Harper 86 

Lady and Maid Persian 87 

Belt and Sword W. L. Taylor 90 

Group of Armor W. L. Taylor 91 

" 'T was more than midnight now " W. L. Sheppard 94 

" What a sight was there before her ! " (p. 96) . . W. L. Sheppard 95 

Decorative Border W. L. Taylor 98 

" And Zelica was left " W. L. Taylor 99 

Panel M. Lyle Durgin 102 

" He and his Zelica sleep side by side " . . . . W. L. Taylor 103 

From Persian Designs M. C. Allen 106 



( xi ) 

PAGE 

From Persian Designs M. C. Alle7i ....... 107 

" One morn a Peri at tlie gate " Ke?iyon Cox no 

" Fleeter than the starry brands " (p. 112) . . . Kettyon Cox in 

" Swiftly descending on a ray " Keiiyon Cox 114 

" And sleek'd her plumage at the fountain " . . . Kenyan Cox 11 j 

" Poor race of men " (p. 117) Kenyan Cox iiS 

" She, who would rather die with him " .... Kenyan Cox 119 

" The bright spirit at the gate smiled " Kenyan Cox 122 

*' The demon of the plague " (p. 116) Kenyan Cox 123 

" Watching the rosy infants play " Kenyoti Cox 126 

" The ruin'd maid, the shrine profaned " (p. 125) . Kenyan Cox 127 

Decorative Page J. H. Wheeler 130 

Decorative Page J. H. Wheeler 131 

Persian Architecture M. C. Allen 134 

Female Figure Persian 135 

" Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell " .... F.T.Merrill 13S 

" One who will pause and kneel unshod " . . . . F. T.Merrill 139 

" 'T is she, the Emir's blooming child " . . . . F. T. Merrill 142 

" Beautiful'are the maids that glide " F. T. Me7-rill 143 

Pipe-Bearer Persian 146 

" I never nursed a dear gazelle " (p. 148) . . . F. S. Church 147 

" I take him cool sherbets and flowers " .... F.T.Merrill 150 

" I am of that impious race " F. T.Merrill 151 

" My signal lights ! — I must away" W. St. J. Harper 154 

" Again she sees his pinnace fiy " (p. 156) . . . W . St. J . Harper 155 

Architecture Frank Myrick- 158 

Architecture Frank Myrick 159 

From the Persian M. C. Allen 162 

" Of sainted cedars on its banks " y. A. Fraser 163 

"A rocky mountain o'er the sea" (p- 165) . . . W.J. Mozart 166 

"A deep and wizard glen" W.J.Mozart 167 

" The Persian lily shines and towers " J. A. Fraser 170 

Persian Tile M.C.Allen 171 

Still Life W. L. Taylor 174 

Still Life W. L. Taylor 175 

" She fancied she was saihng" J. A. Fraser 178 

" Sleeps the grim wave " W.J. Mozai-t 1 79 

" Once more to see her dear gazelles " E. L. Weeks 182 

" She sits alllovely in her gloom " (p. 182) . . . E. L. Weeks 1S3 

Mosque F. H. Allen 1S6 

" The stilly hours when storms are gone " (p. 186) W. J. Mozart 187 

" A group of warriors in the sun " (p. 188) . . . Walter Satterlee 190 

" Uplifted by the warrior throng " (p. 192) . . . Walter Satterlee 191 



( xii ) 

PAGE 

" Never yet was shape so dread " (p. 193) . . . Walter Satterlee ..... 194 

Mausoleum F. H. Allen 195 

" But vainly did those glories burst " (p. 197) . • G. R. Barse 198 

" The warriors shout that dreadful name " (p. 198) G. R. Barse 199 

" The mighty ruins where they stood " W. L. Taylor 202 

Persian Vase and Plate M. C. Allen 203 

Decorative Border M. Lyle Durgiti 206 

From the Persian F. H. Allen 207 

"A ponderous sea-horn hung" F. H. Ltmgren 210 

" As their coursers charged the wind " F. H. Lungren 211 

Flower Border H. O. Dtirgin 214 

Towers F. H. Allen 215 

From Persian Designs M. C. Allen 218 

From Persian Designs M. C. Allen 219 

Decorative Panel H. W. Rowland 222 

From Persian Designs M. C. Allen 223 

" No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water " . . W. L. Taylor 226 

" They '11 weep for the maiden who sleeps in this 

wave " W. L. Taylor 227 

Feramorz H. Sharstem 230 

" In this delightful solitude " J. A. Fraser 231 

The Light of the Harem W. H. Low 234 

" The spirit of fragrance " ......... J. A. Fraser 235 

" Flinging handfuls of roses " W. H. Low 238 

"The hedges" J. A. Fraser 239 

" Like broken clouds " W. H. Low 242 

" O you that have the charge of love " (p. 244) . W. H. Low 243 

" He wanders joyless and alone " W. H. Low 246 

" New-blown lilies of the river " W. H. Low 247 

" No sooner was the flowery crown " W. H. Low 250 

Still Life M. Lyle Dttrgin 251 

" And hourly she renews the lay " W. H. Low 254 

" When the iirst star of evening " W. H. Low 255 

" A mask that leaves but one eye free " (p. 257) . W. H. Low 258 

" As bards have seen him " (p. 258) W. H. Low 259 

" The mask'd Arabian maid " (p. 261) .... T. Eksergian 262 

. " Remember, love, the Feast of Roses " . . . . W. H. Low 263 

Ascending the Mountains J. A. Fraser 266 

The Illumination J- W. Champney 267 

Servant Persian 270 

Servant Persiafi 271 

L'Envoi G. R. Barse 274 







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IN the eleventh year of the reign of Au- 
rungzebe, Abdalla, King of the Lesser 
Bucharia, a lineal descendant from the Great 
Zingis, having abdicated the throne in favor 
of his son, set out on a pilgrimage to the 
Shrine of the Prophet, and, passing 

India through the 




( 2 ) 

delightful valley of Cashmere, rested for a short 
time at Delhi on his way. He was entertained by 
Aurungzebe in a style of magnificent hospitality, 
worthy alike of the visitor and the host, and was af- 
terwards escorted with the same splendor to Surat, 
where he embarked for Arabia. During the stay of 
the Royal Pilgrim at Delhi, a marriage was agreed 
upon between the Prince, his son, and the youngest 
daughter of the Emperor, Lalla Rookh, — a princess 
described by the poets of her time as more beautiful 
than Leila, Shirine, Dewilde, or any of those hero- 
ines whose names and loves embellish the songs of 
Persia and Hindostan. It was intended that the nup- 
tials should be celebrated at Cashmere; where the 
young King, as soon as the cares of empire would 
permit, was to meet, for the first time, his lovely 
bride, and, after a few months' repose in that en- 
chanting valley, conduct her over the snowy hills 
into Bucharia. 

The day of Lalla Rookh's departure from Delhi 
was as splendid as sunshine and pageantry could 
make it. The bazaars and baths were all covered 
with the richest tapestry ; hundreds of gilded barges 
upon the Jumna floated with their banners shining in 
the water ; while through the streets troops of beau- 
tiful children went strewing the most delicious flowers 
around, as in that Persian festival called the Scattering 
of the Roses, till every part of the city was as fra- 
grant as if a caravan of musk from Khoten had passed 
through it. The Princess, having taken leave of her 
kind father, who at parting hung a carnelian of Yemen 
round her neck, on which was inscribed a verse from 
the Koran, and having sent a considerable present to 



( 3 ) 

the Fakirs, who kept up the Perpetual Lamp in her 
sister's tomb, meekly ascended the palankeen prepared 
for her; and while Aurungzebe stood to take a last 
look from his balcony, the procession moved slowly 
on the road to Lahore. 

Seldom had the Eastern World seen a cavalcade 
so superb. From the gardens in the suburbs to the 
imperial palace, it was one unbroken line of splendor. 
The gallant appearance of the Rajas and Mogul lords, 
distinguished by those insignia of the Emperor's 
favor, the feathers of the egret of Cashmere in their 
turbans and the small silver-rimmed kettle-drums at 
the bows of their saddles; the costly armor of their 
-cavaliers, who vied, on this occasion, with the guards 
of the great Kedar Khan, in the brightness of their 
-silver battle-axes and the massiness of their maces of 
gold; the glittering of the gilt pine-apples on the 
tops of the palankeens ; the embroidered trappings 
of the elephants, bearing on their backs small turrets, 
in the shape of little antique temples, within which 
the ladies of Lalla Rookh lay, as it were, enshrined ; 
the rose-colored veils of the Princess's own sump- 
tuous litter, at the front of which a fair young female 
slave sat fanning her through the curtains, with feath- 
ers of the Argus pheasant's wing ; and the lovely 
troop of Tartarian and Cashmerian maids of honor, 
whom the young King had sent to accompany his 
■bride, and who rode on each side of the litter, upon 
small Arabian horses ; — all was brilliant, tasteful, 
and magnificent, and pleased even the critical and 
fastidious Fadladeen, Great Nazir or Chamberlain of 
the Haram, who was borne in his palankeen imme- 
-diately after the Princess, and considered himself not 








the least important personage of the 
pageant. 

Fadladeen was a judge of every- 
thing, — from the pencilHng of a 
Circassian's eyehds to the deepest 
questions of science and hterature, 
from the mixture of a conserve of 
rose-leaves to the composition of an 
epic poem ; and such influence had 
his opinion upon the various tastes 
of the day, that all the cooks and 
poets of Delhi stood in awe of him. 
His political conduct and opinions 
were founded upon that line of 
Sadi : " Should the Prince at noon- 
day say, 'It is night,' declare that 
you behold the moon and stars." 
And his zeal for religion, of which 
Aurungzebe was a munificent pro- 
tector, was about as disinterested as 
that of the goldsmith who fell in 
love with the diamond eyes of the 
idol of Jaghernaut. 

During the first days of their 
journey, Lalla Rookh, who had 



passed all her life within the shadow of the royal 
Gardens of Delhi, found enough in the beauty of 
the scenery through which they passed to interest 
her mind and delight her imagination ; and when, at 
evening or in the heat of the day, they turned ofif 
from the high-road to those retired and romantic 
places which had been selected for her encampments, 
— sometimes on the banks of a small rivulet, as clear 
as the waters of the Lake of Pearl ; sometimes under 
the sacred shade of a banyan tree, from which the 
view opened upon a glade covered with antelopes ; 
and often in those hidden, embowered spots, described 
by one from the Isles of the West, as " places of mel- 
ancholy, delight, and safety, where all the company 
around was wild peacocks and turtle-doves," — she 
felt a charm in these scenes, so lovely and so 
new to her, which for a time made her indif- 
ferent to every other amusement. But Lalla 
Rookh was young, and the young love 
variety; nor could the conversation of 
her Ladies and the Great Chamberlain, 
Fadladeen (the only persons, of course. 




( 6 ) 

admitted to her pavilion), sufficiently enliven those 
many vacant hours which were devoted neither to the 
pillow nor the palankeen. There was a little Persian 
slave who sung sweetly to the Vina, and who now 
and then lulled the Princess to sleep with the an- 
cient ditties of her country, about the loves of 
Wamak and Ezra, the fair-haired Zal and his mis- 
tress Rodahver, not forgetting the combat of Rustam 
with the terrible White Demon. At other times she 
was amused by those graceful dancing-girls of Delhi, 
who had been permitted by the Brahmins of the 
Great Pagoda to attend her, "much to the horror of 
the good Mussulman Fadladeen, who could see noth- 
ing graceful or agreeable in idolaters, and to whom 
the very tinkling of their golden anklets was an 
abomination. 

But these and many other diversions were repeated 
till they lost all their charm, and the nights and noon- 
days were beginning to move heavily, when at length 
it was recollected that, among the attendants sent by 
the bridegroom, was a young poet of Cashmere, 
much celebrated throughout the valley for his man- 
ner of reciting the stories of the East, on whom his 
Royal Master had conferred the privilege of being 
admitted to the pavilion of the Princess, that he 
might help to beguile the tediousness of the journey 
by some of his most agreeable recitals. At the 
mention of a poet, Fadladeen elevated his critical 
eyebrows, and, having refreshed his faculties with 
a dose of that delicious opium which is distilled 
from the black poppy of the Thebais, gave orders 
for the minstrel to be forthwith introduced into the 
presence. 



( 7 ) 

The Princess, who had once in her Hfe seen a poet 
from behind the screens of gauze in her father's hall, 
and had conceived from that specimen no very favor- 
able ideas of the Caste, expected but little in this 
new exhibition to interest her; she felt inclined, 
however, to alter her opinion on the very first ap- 
pearance of Feramorz. He was a youth about Lalla 
Rookh's own age, and graceful as that idol of women, 
Crishna, — such as he appears to their young imagi- 
nations, heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his 
very eyes, and exalting the religion of his worship- 
pers into love. His dress was simple, yet not with- 
out some marks of costliness ; and the Ladies of the 
Princess were not long in discovering that the cloth 
which encircled his high Tartarian cap was of the 
most delicate kind that the shawl-goats of Tibet 
supply. Here and there, too, over his vest, which 
was confined by a flowered girdle of Kashan, hung 
strings of fine pearl, disposed with an air of studied 
negligence ; nor did the exquisite embroidery of his 
sandals escape the observation of these fair critics, 
who, however they might give way to Fadladeen 
upon the unimportant topics of religion and gov- 
ernment, had the spirit of martyrs in everything 
relating to such momentous matters as jewels and 
embroidery. 

For the purpose of relieving the pauses of recita- 
tion by music, the young Cashmerian held in his 
hand a kitar, — such as, in old times, the Arab maids 
of the West used to listen to by moonlight in the 
gardens of the Alhambra, — and having promised, 
with much humility, that the story he was about 
to relate was founded on the adventures of that 




\i'S!(Tt'!i~^'^''^'''tit''i'~~'^-ii'-n 



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THE VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN. 



IN that delightful Province of the Sun, 
The first of Persian lands he shines upon, 
Where, all the loveliest children of his beam, 
Flowerets and fruits blush over every stream, 
And, fairest of all streams, the Murga roves 
Among Meron's bright palaces and 

groves, — 
There, on that throne to which the blind 

belief 
Of millions raised him, sat the Prophet- 
Chief, 
The Great Mokanna. O'er his 

features hung 
The Veil, the Silver Veil, which 

he had flung 
In mercy there, to hide 
from mortal sight 




( 12 ) 

His dazzling brow, till man could bear its light. 

For far less luminous, his votaries said, 

Were e'en the gleams, miraculously shed 

O'er Moussa's cheek, when down the Mount he trod, 

All glowing from the presence of his God ! 

On either side, with ready hearts and hands. 
His chosen guard of bold believers stands, — 
Young fire-eyed disputants, who deem their swords. 
On points of faith, more eloquent than words, — 
And such their zeal, there 's not a youth with brand 
Uplifted there, but, at the Chiefs command, 
Would make his own devoted heart its sheath. 
And bless the lips that doom'd so dear a death ! 
In hatred to the caliph's hue of night. 
Their vesture, helms and all, is snowy white ; 
Their weapons various, — • some, equipp'd for speed. 
With javelins of the light Kathaian reed. 
Or bows of buffalo horn, and shining quivers 
Fill'd with the stems that bloom on Iran's rivers, 
While some, for war's more terrible attacks, 
Wield the huge mace, and ponderous battle-axe; 
And, as they wave aloft in morning's beam 
The milk-white plumage of their helms, they seem 
Like a chenar-tree grove when winter throws 
O'er all its tufted heads his feathering snows. 

Between the porphyry pillars, that uphold 
The rich moresque-work of the roof of gold. 
Aloft the haram's curtain'd galleries rise. 
Where, through the silken network, glancing eyes, 
From time to time, like sudden gleams that glow 
Through autumn clouds, shine o'er the pomp below. — 



( 13 ) 

What impious tongue, ye blushing saints, would dare 
To hint that aught but Heaven hath placed you there? 
Or that the loves of this light world could bind. 
In their gross chain, your Prophet's soaring mind? 
No, — wrongful thought ! — commission'd from above 
To people Eden's bowers with shapes of love 
(Creatures so bright, that the same lips and eyes 
They wear on earth will serve in Paradise), 
There to recline among heaven's native maids. 
And crown th' elect with bliss that never fades, — 
Well hath the Prophet-Chief his bidding done ; 
And every beauteous race beneath the sun, 
From those who kneel at Brahma's burning founts. 
To the fresh nymphs bounding o'er Yemen's mounts ; 
From Persia's eyes of full and fawn-like ray. 
To the small, half-shut glances of Kathay ; 
And Georgia's bloom, and Azab's darker smiles. 
And the gold ringlets of the Western Isles, — 
All, all are there ; each land its flower hath given, 
To form that fair young Nursery for Heaven ! 

But why this pageant now? this arm'd array? 
What triumph crowds the rich divan to-day 
With turban'd heads, of every hue and race, 
Bowing before that veil'd and awful face. 
Like tulip-beds of different shape and dyes, 
Bending beneath th' invisible west-wind's sighs? 
What new-made mystery now, for Faith to sign. 
And blood to seal, as genuine and divine? 
What dazzling mimicry of God's own power 
Hath the bold Prophet plann'd to grace this hour? 
Not such the pageant now, though not less proud: 
Yon warrior youth, advancing from the crowd, 



With silver bow, with beh of broider'd crape, 
And fur-bound bonnet of Bucharian shape, 
So fiercely beautiful in form and eye, 




Like war's wild 
planet in a 

summer sky, — 
That youth to-day 
— a proselyte 

worth hordes 
Of cooler spirits and less 

practised swords — 
Is come to join, all bravery and 

belief. 
The creed and standard of the heaven 

sent Chief. 

Though few his years, the west already 
knows 
Young Azim's fame; beyond th' Olympian snows, 




Ere manhood darken'd o'er his downy 

cheek, 
O'erwhelm'd in fight, and captive to the 

Greek, 
He hnger'd there, till peace dissolved his 

chains ; — 
Oh ! who could, e'en in bondage, tread 

the plains 
Of glorious Greece, nor feel his spirit 

rise 
Kindling within him? who, with heart 

and eyes. 
Could walk where Liberty had been, nor see 
The shining footprints of her Deity, 
Nor feel those god-like breathings in the air. 
Which mutely told her spirit had been there? 
Not he, that youthful warrior, — no, too well 
For his soul's quiet work'd th' awakening spell ! 
And now, returning to his own dear land. 
Full of those dreams of good that, vainly grand, 
Hau nt the young heart, — proud views of human-kind, 
Of men to gods exalted and refined ; 




( i6 ) 

False views, like that horizon's fair deceit, 

Where earth and heaven but seem, alas ! to meet, — 

Soon as he heard an Arm Divine was raised 

To right the nations, and beheld emblazed 

On the white flag Mokanna's host unfurl'd, 

Those words of sunshine, " Freedom to the World," 

At once his faith, his sword, his soul, obey'd 

Th' inspiring summons ; every chosen blade, 

That fought beneath that banner's sacred text, 

Seem'd doubly edged, for this world and the next ; 

And ne'er did Faith with her smooth bandage bind 

Eyes more devoutly willing to be blind 

In virtue's cause, never was soul inspired 

With livelier trust in what it most desired. 

Than his, th' enthusiast there, who kneeling, pale 

With pious awe, before that Silver Veil, 

Believes the form to which he bends his knee, 

Some pure, redeeming angel, sent to free 

This fetter'd world from every bond and stain, 

And bring its primal glories back again ! 

Low as young Azim knelt, that motley crowd 
Of all earth's nations sunk the knee and bow'd, 
With shouts of " Alia ! " echoing long and loud ; 
While high in air, above the Prophet's head. 
Hundreds of banners, to the sunbeam spread. 
Waved, like the wings of the white birds that fan 
The flying throne of star-taught Soliman ! 
Then thus he spoke : " Stranger, though new the frame 
Thy soul inhabits now, I 've track'd its flame 
For many an age, in every chance and change, 
Of that existence through whose varied range — 
As through a torch-race, where, from hand to hand. 



( 17 ) 

The flying youths transmit their shining brand — 
From frame to frame th' unextinguish'd soul 
Rapidly passes, till it reach the goal ! 

" Nor think 'tis only the gross spirits, warm'd 
With duskier fire and for earth's medium form'd. 
That run this course ; beings the most divine 
Thus deign through dark mortality to shine. 
Such was the essence that in Adam dwelt, 
To which all heaven, except the Proud One, knelt ; 
Such the refined intelligence that glow'd 
In Moussa's frame, and, thence descending, flow'd 
Through many a Prophet's breast, — in Issa shone. 
And in Mohammed burn'd, till, hastening on, 
(As a bright river that, from fall to fall 
In many a maze descending, bright through all, 
Finds some fair region where, each labyrinth past, 
In one full lake of light it rests at last !) 
That Holy Spirit, settling calm and free 
From lapse or shadow, centres all in me ! " 

Again throughout th' assembly, at these words, 
Thousands of voices rung ; the warriors' swords 
Were pointed up to heaven ; a sudden wind 
In th' open banners play'd, and from behind 
Those Persian hangings, that but ill could screen 
The haram's loveliness, white hands were seen 
Waving embroider'd scarves, whose motion gave 
A perfume forth, — like those the Houris wave. 
When beckoning to their bowers th' Immortal Brave. 

"But these," pursued the Chief, " are truths sublime, 
That claim a holier mood and calmer time 




Than earth allows us 
now; this sword 
must first 
The darkling prison- 
house of mankind 
burst, 
Ere peace can visit 
them, or truth 
let in 
Her wakening day- 
light on a world 
of sin ! 
But then, celestial warriors, 
then, when all 
Earth's shrines and thrones be- 
fore our banner fall ; 
When the glad slave shall at these 
feet lay down 
His broken chain, the tyrant lord his 
crown. 
The priest his book, the conqueror his wreath. 
And from the lips of Truth one mighty breath 
Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in 

its breeze 
That whole dark pile of human 

mockeries, — 
Then shall the reign of Mind 
commence on earth, 
And starting fresh, as from a second birth, 
Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring. 
Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing ! 
Then, too, your Prophet from his angel brow 
Shall cast the Veil, that hides its splendors now, 
And gladden'd earth shall through her wide expanse 
Bask in the glories of this countenance ! 




" For thee, young warrior, :; 

welcome ! — thou 

hast yet 
Some tasks to learn, some 

frailties to forget. 
Ere the white war-plume o'er thy brow can wave ; 
Eut, once my own, mine all till in the grave ! " 

The pomp is at an end, — the crowds are gone, 
Each ear and heart still haunted by the tone 
Of that deep voice, which thrill'd like Alla's own ! 
The young all dazzled by the plumes and lances, 
The glittering throne, and haram's half-caught glances : 
The old deep pondering on the promised reign 
Of peace and truth ; and all the female train 
Ready to risk their eyes, could they but gaze 
A moment on that brow's miraculous blaze ! 

But there was one among the chosen maids 
Who blush'd behind the gallery's silken shades, 



( 20 ) 

One to whose soul the pageant of to-day 

Has been like death; — you saw her pale dismay, 

Ye wandering sisterhood, and heard the burst 

Of exclamation from her lips, when first 

She saw that youth, too well, too dearly known, 

Silently kneeling at the Prophet's throne. 

Ah, Zelica ! there was a time when bliss 
Shone o'er thy heart from every look of his ; 
When but to see him, hear him, breathe the air 
In which he dwelt, was thy soul's fondest prayer ! 
When round him hung such a perpetual spell, 
Whate'er he did, none ever did so well. 
Too happy days ! when, if he touch'd a flower 
Or gem of thine, 't was sacred from that hour ; 
When thou didst study him, til! every tone 
And gesture and dear look became thy own, — 
Thy voice like his, the changes of his face 
In thine reflected with still lovelier grace. 
Like echo, sending back sweet music, fraught 
With twice th' aerial sweetness it had brought ! 
Yet now he comes, — brighter than even he 
E'er beam'd before, — but, ah ! not bright for thee : 
No, — dread, unlook'd for, like a visitant 
From th' other world, he comes as if to haunt 
Thy guilty soul with dreams of lost delight. 
Long lost to all but memory's aching sight ; 
Sad dreams ! as when the Spirit of our youth 
Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth 
And innocence once ours, and leads us back, 
In mournful mockery, o'er the shining track 
Of our young life, and points out every ray 
Of hope and peace we 've lost upon the way ! 



( 21 ) 

Once happy pair ! — in proud Bokhara's groves, 
Who had not heard of their first youthful loves ? 
Born by that ancient flood, which from its spring 
In the Dark Mountains swiftly wandering, 
Enrich'd by every pilgrim brook that shines 
With relics from Bucharia's ruby mines. 
And, lending to the Caspian half its strength. 
In the cold Lake of Eagles sinks at length, — 
There, on the banks of that bright river born. 
The flowers, that hung above its wave at morn, 
Bless'd not the waters, as they murmur'd by. 
With holier scent and lustre, than the sigh 
And virgin glance of first affection cast 
Upon their youth's smooth current, as it pass'd ! 
But war disturb'd this vision : far away 
From her fond eyes, summon'd to join tli' array 
Of Persia's warriors on the hills of Thrace, 
The youth exchanged his sylvan dwelling-place 
For the rude tent and war-field's deathful clash ; 
His Zelica's sweet glances for the flash 
Of Grecian wild-fire, and Love's gentle chains 
For bleeding bondage on Byzantium's plains. 

Month after month, in widowhood of soul 
Drooping, the maiden saw two summers roll 
Their suns away, — but, ah ! how cold and dim 
Even summer suns, when not beheld with him ! 
From time to time ill-omen'd rumors came 
(Like spirit tongues, muttering the sick man's name 
Just ere he dies) ; at length, those sounds of dread 
Fell withering on her soul, "Azim is dead ! " 
Oh, grief beyond all other griefs, when fate 
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate 



— ... ^^. 

In the wide world, '" 




"T^df wnich ii joved 

or feajr'd :to-die 



.^■f Eofri'as the hung-ugjut®,,^ 

■ tSiSFlie'erliafh spoke. 




■'sem^^ miammtWMfy jji\ s^. 



Since the sad daj^^Jts master-chord was \Si 
Fond maid, the sorrow of her soul \vas"iucl!7 




( 24 ) 

Above the first dead pressure of its woes, 
Though health and bloom return'd, the delicate chain 
Of thought, once tangled, never clear'd again. 
Warm, lively, soft as in youth's happiest day, 
The mind was still all there, but turn'd astray, — 
A wandering bark, upon whose pathway shone 
All stars of heaven, except the guiding one ! 
Again she smiled, nay, much and brightly smiled ; 
But 't was a lustre strange, unreal, wild ; 
And when she sung to her lute's touching strain, 
'T was like the notes, half ecstasy, half pain. 
The bulbul utters, ere her soul depart. 
When, vanquished by some minstrel's powerful art, 
She dies upon the lute whose sweetness broke her 
heart ! 

Such was the mood in which that mission found 
Young Zelica, — that mission, which around 
The eastern world, in every region blest 
With woman's smile, sought out its loveliest, 
To grace that galaxy of lips and eyes 
Which the Veil'd Prophet destined for the skies 1 — 
And such quick welcome as a spark receives 
Dropp'd on a bed of autumn's wither'd leaves, 
Did every tale of these enthusiasts find 
In the wild maiden's sorrow-blighted mind. 
All fire, at once the maddening zeal she caught ; — 
Elect of Paradise ! blest, rapturous thought ; 
Predestined bride, in heaven's eternal dome, 
Of some brave youth — ha! durst they say "of some" f 
No, — of the one, one only object traced 
In her heart's core too deep to be effaced ; 
The one whose memory, fresh as life, is twined 



C 25 ) 

With every broken link of her lost mind, — 
Whose image lives, though reason's self be wreck'd, 
Safe 'mid the ruins of her intellect ! 

Alas, poor Zelica ! it needed all 
The fantasy which held thy mind in thrall, 
To see in that gay haram's glowing maids 
A sainted colony for Eden's shades ; 
Or dream that he — of whose unholy flame 
Thou wert too soon the victim — shining came 
From Paradise, to people its pure sphere 
With souls like thine, which he hath ruin'd here ! 
No, — had not reason's light totally set, 
And left thee dark, thou hadst an amulet 
In the loved image, graven on thy heart. 
Which would have saved thee from the tempter's art, 
And kept alive, in all its bloom of breath, 
That purity, whose fading is love's death ! 
But lost, inflamed, a restless zeal took place 
Of the mild virgin's still and feminine grace ; 
First of the Prophet's favorites, proudly first 
In zeal and charms, too well th' impostor nursed 
Her soul's delirium, in whose active flame, 
Thus lighting up a young, luxuriant frame, 
He saw more potent sorceries to bind 
To his dark yoke the spirits of mankind. 
More subtle chains than hell itself e'er twined. 
No art was spared, no witchery; all the skill 
His demons taught him was employ'd to fill 
Her mind with gloom and ecstasy by turns, — 
That gloom through which frenzy but fiercer burns ; 
That ecstasy which from the depth of sadness 
Glares like the maniac's moon, whose light is madness ! 




. 'Twas from a brilliant banquet, 
where the sound 
Of poesy and music breathed around, 
Together picturing to her mind and ear 
The glories of that heaven, her destined sphere, 
Where all was pure, where every stain that lay 
Upon the spirit's light should pass away, 
And, realizing more than youthful love 
E'er wish'd or dream'd, she should forever rove 
Through fields of fragrance by her Azim's side, 
His own bless'd, purified, eternal bride ! — 
'Twas from a scene, a witching trance, like this, 
He hurried her away, yet breathing bliss, 
To the dim charnel-house; — through all its steams 
Of damp and death, led only by those gleams 
Which foul Corruption lights, as with design 
To show the gay and proud sJie too can shine ! — 
And, passing on through upright ranks of dead, 
Which to the maiden, doubly crazed by dread. 



Seem'd, through the bluish death-light round 

them cast, 
To move their lips in mutterings as she pass'd, — 
There, in that awful place, when each had quaff'd 
And pledged in silence such a fearful draught. 
Such — oh ! the look and taste of that red bowl 
Will haunt her till she dies, — 

he bound her soul 
By a dark oath, in 

hell's own language 

framed. 
Never, while earth 

his mystic presence 

claim'd. 
While the blue arch 

of day hung o'er 

them both. 
Never, by that all- 
imprecating oath. 
In joy or sorrow from 

his side to sever. 
She swore, and the 

wide charnel echo'd, 

" Never, never ! " 

From that dread hour, 

entirely, wildly given 
To him and — she 

believed, lost maid ! — 

to Heaven; 
Her brain, her heart, 

her passions, all 

inflamed, 
How proud she stood, 

when in full haram 

named 




( 28 ) 

The Priestess of the Faith ! — how flash'd her eyes 

With light, alas ! that was not of the skies, 

When round in trances only less than hers, 

She saw the haram kneel, her prostrate worshippers ! 

Well might Mokanna think that form alone 

Had spells enough to make the world his own, — 

Light, lovely limbs, to which the spirit's play 

Gave motion, airy as the dancing spray 

When from its stem the small bird wings away ! 

Lips in whose rosy labyrinth, when she smiled, 

The soul was lost ; and blushes, swift and wild 

As are the momentary meteors sent 

Across th' uncalm but beauteous firmament. 

And then her look ! — oh ! where 's the heart so wise, 

Could unbewilder'd meet those matchless eyes ? 

Quick, restless, strange, but exquisite withal. 

Like those of angels, just before their fall ; 

Now shadow'd with the shames of earth, now cross'd 

Ey glimpses of the heaven her heart had lost; 

In every glance there broke, without control, 

The flashes of a bright but troubled soul, 

Where sensibility still wildly play'd. 

Like lightning, round the ruins it had made ! 

And such was now young Zelica, — so changed 
From her who, some years since, delighted ranged 
The almond groves that shade Bokhara's tide. 
All life and bliss, with Azim by her side ! 
So alter'd was she now, this festal day. 
When, 'mid the proud divan's dazzling array. 
The vision of that youth, whom she had loved. 
And wept as dead, before her breathed and moved ; 
When — bright, she thought, as if from Eden's track 
But half-way trodden, he had wander'd back 
Again to earth, glistening with Eden's light — 
Her beauteous Azim shone before her sight. 



( 29 ) 

O Reason ! who shall say what spells renew, 
When least we look for it, thy broken clew? 
Through what small vistas o'er the darken'd brain 
Thy intellectual daybeam bursts again? 
And how, like forts, to which beleaguerers win 
Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within, 
One clear idea, waken'd in the breast 
By memory's magic, lets in all the rest? 
Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee ! 
But, though light came, it came but partially; 
Enough to show the maze in which thy sense 
Wander'd about, but not to guide it thence ; 
Enough to glimmer o'er the yawning wave, 
But not to point the harbor which might save. 
Hours of delight and peace, long left behind, 
With that dear form came rushing o'er her mind ; 
But, oh ! to think how deep her soul had gone 
In shame and falsehood since those moments shone ; 
And, then, her oath, ■ — there madness lay again, 
And, shuddering, back she sunk into a chain 
Of mental darkness, as if blest to flee 
From light, whose every glimpse was agony ! 
Yet one relief this glance of former years 
Brought, mingled with its pain, — tears, floods of 

tears, 
Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills 
Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills, 
And gushing warm, after a sleep of frost. 
Through valleys where their flow had long been lost ! 

Sad and subdued, for the first time her frame 
Trembled with horror, when the summons came 
(A summons proud and rare, which all but she. 
And she, till now, had heard with ecstasy) 
To meet Mokanna at his place of prayer, 
A garden oratory, cool and fair, 



i:}-pri'. 




By the stream's side, where still at close of day 
The Prophet of the Veil retired to pray ; 
Sometimes alone, but oftener far with one, 
One chosen nymph, to share his orison. 

Of late none found such favor in his sight 
As the young Priestess ; and though, since that 

night 
When the death-caverns echo'd every tone 
Of the dire oath that made her all his own, 
Th' impostor, sure of his infatuate prize, 
Had, more than once, thrown off his soul's 

disguise. 
And utter'd such unheavenly, monstrous things, 
As e'en across the desperate wanderings 

Of a weak intellect, whose lamp was out. 

Threw startling shadows of dismay and doubt. 

Yet zeal, ambition, her tremendous vow. 

The thought, still haunting her, of that bright brow 

Whose blaze, as yet from mortal eye conceal'd, 

Would soon, proud triumph ! be to her reveal'd, 

To her alone ; and then the hope, most dear. 

Most wild of all, that her transgression here 

Was but a passage through earth's grosser fire, 

From which the spirit would at last aspire. 

Even purer than before, — as perfumes rise 

Through flame and smoke, most welcome to the skies, — 

And that when Azim's fond, divine embrace 

Should circle her in heaven, no darkening trace 



"Would on that bosom he once loved remain, 
But all be bright, be pure, be his again ! — 

Wan and dejected, through the evening dusk, 
-She now went slowly to that small kiosk, 
Where, pondering alone his impious schemes, 
Mokanna waited her, too wrapt in dreams 
Of the fair-ripening future's rich success. 
To heed the sorrow, pale and spiritless, 




That sat upon his victim's downcast brow, 
Or mark how slow her step, how alter'd now 
From the quick, ardent Priestess, whose light bound 
Came like a spirit's o'er th' unechoing ground, — 
From that wild Zelica, whose every glance 
Was thrilling fire, whose every thought a trance '. 

Upon his couch the Veil'd Mokanna lay,^ 
While lamps around — not such as lend their ray, 
Glimmering and cold, to those who nightly pray 
In holy Koom, or Mecca's dim arcades, 

1 Owing to the sudden death of the artist, Mr. S. G. McCutcheon, while actually 
■engaged upon this illustration, it is reproduced, as his hand left it, in an unfinished 
state. — Ed. 



( 32 ) 

But brilliant, soft, — such lights as lovely maids 

Look loveliest in — shed their luxurious glow 

Upon his mystic Veil's white glittering flow. 

Beside him, 'stead of beads and books of prayer, 

Which the world fondly thought he mused on there. 

Stood vases, filled with Kishmee's golden wine. 

And the red weepings of the Shiraz vine ; 

Of which his curtain'd lips full many a draught 

Took zealously, as if each drop they quaff'd. 

Like Zemzem's Spring of Holiness, had power 

To freshen the soul's virtues into flower ! 

And still he drank and ponder'd, nor could see 

Th' approaching maid, so deep his reverie ; 

At length, with fiendish laugh, like that which broke 

From Eblis at the Fall of Man, he spoke: — 

" Yes, ye vile race, for hell's amusement given. 
Too mean for earth, yet claiming kin with Heaven ; 
God's images, forsooth ! — such gods as he 
Whom India serves, the monkey deity ; 
Ye creatures of a breath, proud things of clay, 
To whom if Lucifer, as grandams say. 
Refused, though at the forfeit of Heaven's light, 
To bend in worship, Lucifer was right ! — 
Soon shall I plant this foot upon the neck 
Of your foul race, and without fear or check. 
Luxuriating in hate, avenge my shame. 
My deep-felt, long-nurst loathing of man's name ! — 
Soon, at the head of myriads, blind and fierce 
As hooded falcons, through the universe 
I '11 sweep my darkening, desolating way. 
Weak man my instrument, curst man my prey ! 

" Ye wise, ye learn'd, who grope your dull way on 
By the dim twinkling gleams of ages gone. 
Like superstitious thieves, who think the light 



( 33 ) 

From dead men's marrow guides them best at night, 

Ye shall have honors, wealth, — yes, sages, yes, — 

I know, grave fools, your wisdom's nothingness ; 

Undazzled it can track yon starry sphere, 

But a gilt stick, a bawble, blinds it here. 

How I shall laugh, when trumpeted along. 

In lying speech and still more lying song. 

By these learn'd slaves, the meanest of the throng ; 

Their wits bought up, their wisdom shrunk so small 

A sceptre's puny point can wield it all ! 

"Ye, too, believers of incredible creeds, 
Whose faith enshrines the monsters which it breeds ; 
Who, bolder even than Nemrod, think to rise. 
By nonsense heap'd on nonsense to the skies, — 
Ye shall have the miracles, aye, sound ones too, 
Seen, heard, attested, everything — but true. 
Your preaching zealots, too inspired to seek 
One grace of meaning for the things they speak ; 
Your martyrs, ready to shed out their blood. 
For truths too heavenly to be understood ; 
And your state priests, sole venders of the lore 
That works salvation, — as on Ava's shore, 
Where none but priests are privileged to trade 
In that best marble of which Gods are made ; — 
They shall have mysteries, — aye, precious stuff 
For knaves to thrive by, — mysteries enough ; 
Dark, tangled doctrines, dark as fraud can weave, 
Which simple votaries shall on trust receive. 
While craftier feign belief till they believe. 
A heaven, too, ye must have, ye lords of dust, — 
A splendid paradise, — pure souls, ye must: 
That Prophet ill sustains his holy call, 
Who finds not heavens to suit the tastes of all ; 
Houris for boys, omniscience for sages. 
And wings and glories for all ranks and ages. 



Vain things ! — as lust or vanity inspires, 
The heaven of each is but what each desires, 
And, soul or sense, whate'er the object be, 
Man vi^ould be man to all eternity ! 
So let him — Eblis ! grant this crowning curse. 
But keep him what he is, no hell were worse." 



"Oh, my lost soul ! " exclaim'd the shuddering maid, 
Whose ears had drunk like poison all he said. 
Mokanna started, — not abash'd, afraid : 
He knew no more of fear than one who dwells 

Beneath the tropics knows of icicles ! 
But in those dismal words that reach'd his 

ear, 
" Oh, my lost soul ! " there was a sound so 

drear, 
So like that voice among the sinful dead. 
In which the legend o'er hell's gate is read, 
That, new as 'twas from her, whom nought 

could dim 
Or sink till now, it startled even him. 

" Ha, my fair Priestess ! " thus, with ready 

wile, 
Th' impostor turn'd to greet her, — "thou, 

whose smile 
Hath inspiration in its rosy beam 
Beyond the enthusiast's hope or prophet's 

dream ! 
Light of the Faith ! who twin'st religion's 

zeal 
So close with love's, men know not which 

they fee], 
Nor which to sigh for, in their trance of 

heart, — 
The heaven thou preachest or the heaven 

thou art ! 
What should I be without thee? without 

thee 




r 



tHow dull were power, how joyless victory! 
Though borne by angels, if that smile of 

thine 
Bless'd not my banner, 't were but half 

divine. 
But — why so mournful, child ? those 

eyes, that shone 
All life last night — what! is their glory 

gone? 
Come, come, — this morn's fatigue hath 

made them pale, 
hey want rekindling, — suns themselves 

would fail, 
Did not their comets bring, as I to 
j thee. 

From Light's own fount supplies of 

brilliancy ! 
Thou seest this cup, — no juice of eafth 

is here, 
But the pure waters of that upper ' 
! sphere, 

j Whose rills o'er ruby beds and topaz 

flow, 
Catching the gem's bright color, as 

they go. 
Nightly my Genii come and fill these 

urns — 





( 36 ) 

Nay, drink, — in every drop life's essence burns ; 

'T will make that soul all fire, those eyes all light. 

Come, come, I want thy loveliest smiles to-night: 

There is a youth — why start? — thou saw'st him then ; 

Look'd he not nobly? such the godlike men 

Thou 'It have to woo thee in the bowers above ; — 

Though he, I fear, hath thoughts too stern for love. 

Too ruled by that cold enemy of bliss 

The world calls virtue, — we must conquer this; — 

Nay, shrink not, pretty sage ; 't is not for thee 

To scan the maze of heaven's mystery. 

The steel must pass through fire, ere it can yield 

Fit instruments for mighty hands to wield. 

This very night I mean to try the art 

Of powerful beauty on that warrior's heart. 

All that my haram boasts of bloom and wit. 

Of skill and charms, most rare and exquisite, 

Shall tempt the boy, — young Mirzala's blue eyes, 

Whose sleepy lid like snow on violet lies ; 

Arouya's cheeks, warm as a spring-day sun, 

And lips that, like the seal of Solomon, 

Have magic in their pressure ; Zeba's lute. 

And Lilla's dancing feet, that gleam and shoot 

Rapid and white as sea-birds o'er the deep ! — 

All shall combine their witching powers to steep 

My convert's spirit in that softening trance,' 

From which to heaven is but the next advance, — 

That glowing, yielding fusion of the breast. 

On which Religion stamps her image best. 

But hear me. Priestess ! though each nymph of these 

Hath some peculiar, practised power to please. 

Some glance or step, which, at the mirror tried. 



( 37 ) 

First charms herself, then all the world beside, 
There still wants one to make the victory sure. 
One who in every look joins every lure ; 
Through whom all beauty's beams concentred pass. 
Dazzling and warm, as through love's burning-glass. 
Whose gentle lips persuade without a word, 
Whose words, even when unmeaning, are adored, 
Like inarticulate breathings from a shrine, 
Which our faith takes for granted are divine ! 
Such is the nymph we want, all warmth and light, 
To crown the rich temptations of to-night ; 
Such the refined enchantress that must be 
This hero's vanquisher, — and thou art she ! " 

With her hands clasp'd, her lips apart and pale, 
The maid had stood, gazing upon the Veil 
From which these words, like south winds through a 

fence 
Of Kerzrah flowers, came filled with pestilence : 
So boldly utter'd too ! as if all dread 
Of frowns from her, of virtuous frowns, were fled, 
And the wretch felt assured that, once plunged in, 
Her woman's soul would know no pause in sin ! 

At first, though mute she listen'd, like a dream 
Seem'd all he said ; nor could her mind, whose beam 
As yet was weak, penetrate half his scheme. 
But when, at length, he uttered, " Thou art she ! " 
All flash'd at once, and, shrieking piteously, 
" Oh, not for worlds ! " she cried — " Great God ! to 

whom 
I once knelt innocent, is this my doom? 




all my dreams, my hopes of heavenly bhss, 
My purity, my pride, then come to this? — 
To live, the wanton of a fiend ! to be 
The pander of his guilt — oh, infamy ! — 
And sunk, myself, as low as hell can steep 
In its hot flood, drag others down as deep ! 
Others? — ha ! yes, — that youth who came 
to-day, — 
Not him I love, — not him, — oh, do but say. 
But swear to me this moment 't is not he, 
And I will serve, dark fiend ! will worship 
even thee ! " 





" Beware, young raving thing ! - 
time beware, 
Nor utter what I cannot, must not, bear 
Even from thy lips. Go, try thy lute, thy 

voice ; 
The boy must feel their magic, — I rejoice 
To see those fires, no matter whence they rise, 
Once more illuming my fair Priestess' eyes ; 
And should the youth, whom soon those 

eyes shall warm, 
hideed resemble thy dead lover's form, 
So much the happier wilt thou find thy 

doom. 




( 40 ) 

As one warm lover, full of life and bloom, 

Excels ten thousand cold ones in the tomb. 

Nay, nay, no frowning, sweet ! those eyes were made 

For love, not anger, — I must be obey'd." 

" Obey'd ! — 'tis well, — • yes, I deserve it all. 
On me — on me Heaven's vengeance cannot fall 
Too heavily ; but Azim, brave and true 
And beautiful, — must he be ruin'd too? 
Must he, too, glorious as he is, be driven, 
A renegade, like me, from love and heaven? 
Like me? — weak wretch, I wrong him, — not like me; 
No, — he 's all truth and strength and purity ! 
Fill up your maddening hell-cup to the brim. 
Its witchery, fiends, will have no charm for him. 
Let loose your glowing wantons from their bowers, 
He loves, he loves, and can defy their powers ! 
Wretch that I am, in Ids heart still I reign 
Pure as when first we met, without a stain ! 
Though ruin'd — lost — my memory, like a charm 
Left by the dead, still keeps his soul from harm. 
Oh ! never let him know how deep the brow 
He kiss'd at parting is dishonor'd now, — 
Ne'er tell him how debased, how sunk, is she 
Whom once he loved ! — once ! — still loves dotingly ! 
Thou laugh'st, tormentor, — what ! thou 'It brand my 

name? 
Do, do, — in vain ; he '11 not believe my shame. 
He thinks me true, — that nought beneath God's sky 
Could tempt or change me, and — so once thought L 
But this is past, — though worse than death my lot, 
Than hell, 't is nothing, while he knows it not. 
Far off to some benighted land I 'II fly. 



( 41 ) 

Where sunbeam ne'er shall enter till I die ; 

Where none will ask the lost one whence she came, 

But I may fade and fall without a name ! 

And thou — curst man or fiend, whate'er thou art, 

Who found'st this burning plague-spot in my heart. 

And spread'st it — oh, so quick ! — through soul and 

frame. 
With more than demon's art, till I became 
A loathsome thing, all pestilence, all flame ! — 
If, when I'm gone — " 

" Hold, fearless maniac, hold. 
Nor tempt my rage ! — by Heaven ! not half so bold 
The puny bird that dares, with teasing hum. 
Within the crocodile's stretch'd jaws to come ! 
And so thou 'It fly, forsooth? — what! give up all 
Thy chaste dominion in the Haram Hall, 
Where now to Love and now to Alia given, 
Half mistress and half saint, thou hang'st as even 
As doth Medina's tomb, 'twixt hell and heaven ! 
Thou 'It fly? — as easily may reptiles run 
The gaunt snake once hath fix'd his eyes upon ; 
As easily, when caught, the prey may be 
Pluck'd from his loving folds, as thou from me. 
No, no, 'tis fix'd, — let good or ill betide. 
Thou 'rt mine till death, till death Mokanna's bride ! 
Hast thou forgot thy oath? — " 

At this dread word. 
The Maid, whose spirit his rude taunts had stirr'd 
Through all its depths, and roused an anger there. 
That burst and lighten'd even through her despair. 





Shrunk back, as if a blight 
were in the breath 
That spoke that word, and 
stagger'd, pale as death. 

] 
"Yes, my sworn bride, let others 
seek in bowers 
Their bridal place, — the charnel vault 
was ours ! 
Instead of scents and balms, for thee and me 
Rose the rich steams of sweet mortality ; 
Gay, flickering death-lights shone while we were wed, 
And, for our guests, a row of goodly dead 
(Immortal spirits in their time, no doubt) 
From reeking shrouds upon the rite look'd out ! 
That oath thou heard'st more lips than thine repeat; 
That cup, — thou shudderest, lady; was it sweet? — 
That cup we pledged, the charnel's choicest wine, — 
Hath bound thee, aye, body and soul all mine ; 
Bound thee by chains that, whether blest or curst. 
No matter now, not hell itself shall burst ! 
Hence, woman, to the haram, and look gay. 
Look wild, look — -anything but sad ; yet stay — j 

One moment more, — from what this night hath pass'd,| 
I see thou know'st me, know'st me well at last. 
Ha ! ha ! and so, fond thing, thou thought'st all true. 
And that I love mankind — I do, I do, 
As victims, love them ; as the sea-dog doats 
Upon the small sweet fry that round him floats. 
Or as the Nile-bird loves the slime that gives 
That rank and venomous food on which she lives I 



"And now thou seest my sotiVs angelic hue, 
'Tis time \h&sQ features were uncurtained too, — 




This brow, whose light — oh, rare celestial light ! — 
Hath been reserved to bless thy favor'd sight ; 
These dazzling eyes, before whose shrouded might 
Thou 'st seen immortal Man kneel down and quake, — 
Would that they were heaven's hghtnings for his sake ! 
But turn and look ; then wonder, if thou wilt. 
That I should hate, should take revenge, by guilt. 
Upon the hand whose mischief or whose mirth 
Sent me thus maim'd and monstrous upon earth. 
And on that race who, though more vile they be 
Than mowing apes, are demigods to me ! 
Here — judge if hell, with all its powers to damn. 
Can add one curse to the foul thing I am ! " — 



He raised his veil, — the Maid turn'd slowly round, 
Look'd at him, shriek' d, and sunk upon the ground ! 



( 44 ) 

On their arrival, next night, at the place of en- 
campment, they were surprised and delighted to find 
the groves all round illuminated; some artists of 
Yamtcheou having been sent on previously for the 
purpose. On each side of the green alley which led 
to the Royal Pavilion, artificial sceneries of bamboo 
work were erected, representing arches, minarets, and 
towers, from which hung thousands of silken lanterns, 
painted by the most delicate pencils of Canton. Noth- 
ing could be more beautiful than the leaves of the 
mango-trees and acacias, shining in the light of the 
bamboo scenery, which shed a lustre round as soft as 
that of the nights of Peristan. 

Lalla Rookh, however, who was too much occupied 
by the sad story of Zelica and her lover to give a 
thought to anything else, except, perhaps, him who 
related it, hurried on through this scene of splendor 
to her pavilion, — greatly to the mortification of the 
poor artists of Yamtcheou, — and was followed with 
equal rapidity by the Great Chamberlain, cursing, as 
he went, the ancient Mandarin whose parental anx- 
iety in lighting up the shores of the lake where his 
beloved daughter had wandered and been lost, was 
the origin of these fantastic Chinese illuminations. 

Without a moment's delay, young Feramorz was 
introduced ; and Fadladeen, who could never make up 
his mind as to the merits of a poet till he knew the 
religious sect to which he belonged, was about to ask 
him whether he was a Shia or a Sooni, when Lalla 
Rookh impatiently clapped her hands for silence, and 
the youth, being seated upon the musnud near her, 
proceeded: — 



( 45 ) 

Prepare thy soul, young Azim ! — thou hast braved 

The bands of Greece, still mighty, though enslaved ; 

Hast faced her phalanx, arm'd with all its fame. 

Her Macedonian pikes and globes of flame ; — 

All this hast fronted, with firm heart and brow : 

But a more perilous trial waits thee now, — 

Woman's bright eyes, a dazzling host of eyes 

From every land where woman smiles or sighs ; 

Of every hue, as Love may chance to raise 

His black or azure banner in their blaze; 

And each sweet mode of warfare, from the flash 

That lightens boldly through the shadowy lash, 

To the sly, stealing splendors, almost hid, 

"Like swords half-sheathed, beneath the downcast lid. 

Such, Azim, is the lovely, luminous host 

Now led against thee ; and, let conquerors boast 

Their fields of fame, he who in virtue arms 

A young, warm spirit against beauty's charms, 

Who feels her brightness, yet defies her thrall. 

Is the best, bravest conqueror of them all. 

Now, through the haram chambers, moving lights 
And busy shapes proclaim the toilet's rites ; 
From room to room the ready handmaids hie, — 
Some skill'd to wreathe the turban tastefully. 
Or hang the veil, in negligence of shade. 
O'er the warm blushes of the youthful maid. 
Who, if between the folds but one eye shone, 
Like Seba's Queen could vanquish with that one ; 
While some bring leaves of henna to imbue 
The fingers' ends with a bright roseate hue, 
So bright that in the mirror's depth they seem 
Like tips of coral branches in the stream; 



And others mix the Kohol's jetty dye, 

To give that long, dark languisli to the eye. 

Which makes the maids, whom kings are proud to cull 

From fair Circassia's vales, so beautiful ! 



All is in motion: rings and plumes and pearls 
Are shining everywhere ! Some younger girls 
Are gone by moonlight to the garden beds, 
To gather fresh, cool chaplets for their heads ; — 
Gay creatures ! sweet, though mournful, 't is to see 
How each prefers a garland from that tree 
Which brings to mind her childhood's innocent day, 
And the dear fields and friendships far away. 
The maid of India, blest again to hold 
In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold, 
Thinks of the time when, by the Ganges' flood, 
Her little playmates scatter'd many a bud 
Upon her long black hair, with glossy gleam 
Just dripping from the consecrated stream ; 

While the young Arab, haunted by 
the smell 
Of her own mountain flowers, 
as by a spell, — 
The sweet Elcaya, and that 
courteous tree 
Which bows to all who seek 
its canopy, — 
Sees, call'd up round 
her by these magic 
scents. 
The well, the camels, 
and her father's 
tents ; 




Sighs for the home she left with little pain, 
And wishes even its sorrows back again ! 

Meanwhile, through vast illuminated 
halls, 
Silent and bright, where nothing 

but the falls 
Of fragrant waters, gushing with cool 

sound 
From many a jasper fount is heard 

around, 
Young Azim roams bewilder'd, nor 
can guess 
\\'hat means this maze of light 
and loneliness. 
Here the way leads, o'er tes- 
sellated floors 
Or mats of Cairo, through 
long corridors, 
Where, ranged in casselets 
and silver urns. 




( 48 ) 

Sweet wood of aloe or of sandal burns ; 
And spicy rods, such as illume at night 
The bowers of Tibet, send forth odorous light. 
Like Peris' wands, when pointing out the road 
For some pure spirit to its blest abode ! — 
And here, at once, that glittering saloon 
Bursts on his sight, boundless and bright as noon; 
Where, in the midst, reflecting back the rays 
In broken rainbows, a fresh fountain plays 
High as th' enamell'd cupola, which towers 
All rich with arabesques of gold and flowers ; 
And the mosaic floor beneath shines through 
The sprinkling of that fountain's silvery dew, 
Like the wet, glistening shells, of every dye, 
That on the margin of the Red Sea lie. 

Here too he traces the kind visitings 
Of woman's love in those fair, living things 
Of land and wave, whose fate — in bondage thrown 
For their weak loveliness — is like her own ! 
On one side gleaming with a sudden grace 
Through water, brilliant as the crystal vase 
In which it undulates, small fishes shine, 
Like golden ingots from a fairy mine ; 
While, on the other, latticed lightly in 
With odoriferous woods of Comorin, 
Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen, — 
Gay, sparkling loories, such as gleam between 
The crimson blossoms of the coral tree 
In the warm isles of India's sunny sea ; 
Mecca's blue sacred pigeon, and the thrush 
Of Hindostan, whose holy warblings gush, 
At evening, from the tall pagoda's top ; 



( 49 ) 

Those golden birds that, in the spice time, drop 
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food 
Whose scent hath lured them o'er the summer flood ; 
And those that under Araby's soft sun 
Build their high nests of budding cinnamon ; — 
In short, all rare and beauteous things that fly 
Through the pure element, here calmly lie 
Sleeping in light, like the green birds that dwell 
In Eden's radiant fields of asphodel ! 

So on, through scenes past all imagining, — 
More like the luxuries of that impious king 
Whom Death's dark angel, with his lightning torch 
Struck down and blasted even in pleasure's porch, 
Than the pure dwelling of a prophet sent, 
Arm'd with Heaven's sword, for man's enfranchise- 
ment, — 
Young Azim wander'd, looking sternly round, 
His simple garb and war-boot's clanking sound 
But ill according with the pomp and grace 
And silent lull of that voluptuous place ! 

" Is this, then," thought the youth, " is this the way 
To free man's spirit from the deadening sway 
Of worldly sloth, — to teach him, while he lives. 
To know no bliss but that which virtue gives. 
And when he dies, to leave his lofty name 
A light, a landmark, on the cliffs of fame? 
It was not so, land of the generous thought 
And daring deed ! thy godlike sages taught ; 
It was not thus, in bowers of wanton ease. 
Thy Freedom nursed her sacred energies ; 




surveys this spaii of earth wfc press; /^^ 



This speck of hfe in time's great wilderness, crfc^/ 
'®-i This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boimdless seaq,^^ 
^ The past, the future, two eternities t^J™"''"**'^'^'^'*' 
Would sully the bright spot or leave- it^balFe; 
_When he might build him a proud temple there. 



\A iiame that longsTiall hallow all its space, s^O^t: 
^-^^ And be each purer soul's high resting-place !- 
~ ^*S/But no ;- it cannot be that one whom God 

Has sent to break the ^vizard Falsehood's rod — 
"A prophet of the Truth, whose_.mission draws- 
flits rights from heaven— -should thus. profel& 
, /cause . ■■_ '^wn-^-if 



\^J "^^rai- the world's vui^r^Sh^s ;' Q0,^GnT''see^^iite!: 





yoafhX ^Wtliveii 'wEIF15e' defied' 
This witching scene, he felt its witchery glide 
'sC/Through every sense. The perfume, breathing round, f. \^ 
(Like a pervading spirit ; the still sound 
L^^f falling waters, lulling as the song . ' -'-^ " 



^ 



'% Of Indian bees at sunset, when they throris^^ 
?i^- Around the fragrant Nilica, and deep ^/^4>^ 
'Jn its blue blossoms hum themselves to slee^f^^ 
And music, too, — dear music ! that can touch 
■r,Beyond all else the soul that loves it much, — -^ 
■-=^V^ Now heard far off, so far as but to seem ,,.-^; 
Like thefeint, exquisite music of a dreari 
1 AH was too much for him, too full of bUs 
,rt could nothing feel, that felt jiC 




( 52 ) 

Soften'd he sunk upon a couch, and gave 

His soul up to sweet thoughts, like wave on wave 

Succeeding in smooth seas, when storms are laid; 

He thought of Zelica, his own dear maid, 

And of the time when, full of blissful sighs, 

They sat and look'd into each other's eyes, 

Silent and happy, as if God had given 

Nought else worth looking at on this side heaven ! 

" O my loved mistress ! whose spirit still 
Is with me, round me, wander where I will. 
It is for thee, for thee alone, I seek 
The paths of glory, — to light up thy cheek 
With warm approval, — in that gentle look 
To read my praise, as in an angel's book. 
And think all toils rewarded, when from thee 
I gain a smile, worth immortality ! 
How shall I bear the moment, when restored 
To that young heart where I alone am lord, 
Though of such bliss unworthy, — since the best 
Alone deserve to be the happiest ! — 
When from those lips, unbreathed upon for years, 
I shall again kiss off the soul-felt tears. 
And find those tears warm as when last they started, 
Those sacred kisses pure as when we parted ! 
O my own life ! why should a single day, 
A moment, keep me from those arms away? " 

While thus he thinks, still nearer on the breeze 
Come those delicious, dream-like harmonies. 
Each note of which but adds new, downy links 
To the soft chain in which his spirit sinks. 
He turns him toward the sound ; and far away 



( 53 ) 

Through a long vista, sparkling with the play 

Of countless lamps, — like the rich track which day 

Leaves on the waters when he sinks from us. 

So long the path, its light so tremulous, — 

He sees a group of female forms advance : 

Some chain'd together in the mazy dance 

By fetters, forged in the green sunny bowers, 

As they were captives to the King of Flowers ; 

And some disporting round, unlink'd and free, 

Who seem'd to mock their sisters' slavery, 

And round and round them still, in wheeling flight, 

Went, like gay moths about a lamp at night ; 

While others waked, as gracefully along 

Their feet kept time, the very soul of song 

From psaltery, pipe, and lutes of heavenly thrill. 

Or their own youthful voices, heavenlier still ! 

And now they come, now pass before his eye, — 

Forms such as Nature moulds, when she would vie 

With Fancy's pencil, and give birth to things 

Lovely beyond its fairest picturings ! 

Awhile they dance before him, then divide 

Breaking, like rosy clouds at even-tide 

Around the rich pavilion of the sun. 

Till silently dispersing, one by one, 

Through many a path that from the chamber leads 

To gardens, terraces, and moonlight meads, 

Their distant laughter comes upon the wind, 

And but one trembling nymph remains behind, 

Reckoning them back in vain, for they are gone, 

And she is left in all that light alone ; 

No veil to curtain o'er her beauteous brow, 

In its young bashfulness more beauteous now. 

But a light golden chain-work round her hair, 




Such as the maids of 

Yezd and Shiraz wear, 
From which, on either ■' 

side, gracefully hung 
A golden amulet, in th' Arab tongue 
Engraven o'er with some immortal line 
From holy writ, or bard scarce less divine ; 
While her left hand, as shrinkingly she stood, 
Held a small lute of gold and sandal-wood, 
Which once or twice she touch'd with 

hurried strain, 
Then took her trembling fingers off again. 
But when at length a timid glance she stole 
At Azim, the sweet gravity of soul 
She saw through all his features calm'd her fear. 
And, like a half-tamed antelope, more near. 



Though shrinking still, she came ; then 

sat her down 
Upon a musnud's edge, and, bolder 

grown. 
In the pathetic mode of Isfahan 
Touch'd a preluding strain, and 

thus began : — 

There's a bower of roses by 
Bendemeer's stream, 
And the nightingale sings 
round it all the day long. 
In the time of my childhood 
'twas like a sweet dream, 
To sit in the roses and hear 
the bird's song. 





/.>'* . —- " ^ - '^ ■■ 



^^/>^ 



■^ 



( 56 ) 

That bower and its music I never forget, 

But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year, 

I think — is the nightingale singing there yet? 

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer? 

No, the roses soon wither'd that hung o'er the wave ; 

But some blossoms were gather'd, while freshly 
they shone, 
And a dew was distill'd from their flowers, that gave 

All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone. 

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies, 
An essence that breathes of it many a year; 

Thus bright to my soul, as 't was then to my eyes. 
Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer I 

" Poor maiden ! " thought the youth, " if thou wert 
sent, 
With thy soft lute and beauty's blandishment 
To wake unholy wishes in this heart. 
Or tempt its truth, thou little know'st the art; 
For though thy lip should sweetly counsel wrong. 
Those vestal eyes would disavow its song. 
But thou hast breathed such purity, thy lay 
Returns so fondly to youth's virtuous day. 
And leads thy soul — if e'er it wander'd thence — 
So gently back to its first innocence. 
That I would sooner stop the unchain'd dove, 
When swift returning to its home of love. 
And round its snowy wing new fetters twine, 
Than turn from virtue one pure wish of thine ! " 

Scarce had this feeling pass'd when sparkling 
through 
The gently open'd curtains of light blue 



( 57 ) 

That veil'd the breezy casement, countless eyes, 

Peeping like stars through the blue evening skies, 

Look'd laughing in, as if to mock the pair 

That sat so still and melancholy there. 

And now the curtains fly apart, and in 

From the cool air, 'mid showers of jessamine 

Which those without fling after them in play, 

Two lightsome maidens spring, lightsome as they 

Who live in th' air on odors, and around 

The bright saloon, scarce conscious of the ground. 

Chase one another, in a varying dance 

Of mirth and languor, coyness and advance. 

Too eloquently like love's warm pursuit ; 

While she who sung so gently to the lute 

Her dream of home, steals timidly away, 

Shrinking as violets do in summer's ray, 

But takes with her from Azim's heart that sigh 

We sometimes give to forms that pass us by 

In the world's crowd, too lovely to remain, 

Creatures of light we never see again ! 

Around the white necks of the nymphs who danced 
Hung carcanets of orient gems, that glanced 
More brilliant than the sea-glass glittering o'er 
The hills of crystal on the Caspian shore ; 
While from their long, dark tresses, in a fall 
Of curls descending, bells as musical 
As those that on the golden-shafted trees 
Of Eden shake in the Eternal Breeze, 
Rung round their steps, at every bound more sweet, 
As 'twere th' ecstatic language of their feet ! 
At length the chase was o'er, and they stood wreathed 
Within each other's arms ; while soft there breathed 




-4i- 



/¥ 



'^ ^*>l^ Through the cool 

casement, mingled 
with the sighs 
Of moonlight flow- 
ers, music that 
seem'd to rise 
From some still lake, so 
liquidly it rose ; 
And, as it swell'd again at each 
! faint close, 

The ear could track through all that maze of 
chords 
And young sweet voices, these impassion'd words: — 



A Spirit there is, whose fragrant sigh 
Is burning now through earth and air: 

Where cheeks are blushing, the Spirit is nigh ; 
Where lips are meeting, the Spirit is there I 

His breath is the soul of flowers like these, 
And his floating eyes — oh ! they resemble 

Blue water-lilies, when the breeze 

Is making the stream around them tremble ! 

Hail to thee, hail to thee, kindling power ! 

Spirit of Love ! Spirit of Bliss ! 
Thy holiest time is the moonlight hour. 

And there never was moonlight so sweet as this. 

By the fair and brave, 

Who blushing unite, 
Like the sun and wave. 

When they meet at night ! 




By the tear that shows 
When passion is nigh, 

As the rain-drop flows 
From the heat of the sky ! 

By the first love-beat 
Of the youthful heart, 

By the bhss to meet, 
And the pain to part ! 

By all that thou hast 

To mortals given. 
Which — oh! could it last, 

This earth were heaven ! 



We call thee hither, entrancing Power ! 

Spirit of Love ! Spirit of Bliss ! 
Thy holiest time is the moonlight hour. 

And there never was moonlight so sweet as this 



Impatient of a scene whose luxuries stole. 
Spite of himself, too deep into his soul 
And where, 'midst all that the young heart loves^ ^- 
Flowers, music, smiles, to yield was to be lost 
The youth hath started up, and turn'd away ' 
From the light nymphs and their luxurious lay. 



( 6o ) 

To muse upon the pictures that hung round, — 

Bright images, that spoke without a sound, 

And views, like vistas into fairy ground. 

But here again new spells came o'er his sense : 

All that the pencil's mute omnipotence 

Could call up into life, of soft and fair. 

Of fond and passionate, was glowing there ; 

Nor yet too warm, but touch'd with that fine art 

Which paints of pleasure but the purer part ; 

Which knows e'en Beauty when half veil'd is best, 

Like her own radiant planet of the west, 

Whose orb when half retired looks loveliest ! 

Tliere hung the history of the Genii-King, 

Traced through each gay, voluptuous wandering 

With her from Saba's bowers, in whose bright eyes 

He read that to be blest is to be wise ; 

Here fond Zuleika wooes with open arms 

The Hebrew boy, who flies from her young charms, 

Yet, flying, turns to gaze, and, half undone, 

Wishes that heaven and she could both be won ! 

And here Mohammed, born for love and guile, 

Forgets the Koran in his Mary's smile ; 

Then beckons some kind angel from above 

With a new text to consecrate their love 1 

With rapid step, yet pleased and lingering eye, 
Did the youth pass these pictured stories by. 
And hasten'd to a casement, where the light 
Of the calm moon came in, and freshly bright 
The fields without were seen, sleeping as still 
As if no life remain'd in breeze or rill. 
Here paused he, while the music, now less near. 



( 6i ) 

Breathed with a holier language on his ear, 
As though the distance and that heavenly ray 
Through which the sounds came floating, took away 
All that had been too earthly in the lay. 
Oh 1 could he listen to such sounds unmoved. 
And by that light, — nor dream of her he loved? 
Dream on, unconscious boy ! while yet thou mayst ; 
'T is the last bliss thy soul shall ever taste. 
Clasp yet awhile her image to thy heart. 
Ere all the light that made it dear depart. 
Think of her smiles as when thou saw'st them last, 
Clear, beautiful, by nought of earth o'ercast; 
Recall her tears, to thee at parting given, 
Pure as they weep, if angels weep, in heaven ! 
Think in her own still bower she waits thee now, 
With the same glow of heart and bloom of brow, 
Yet shrined in solitude, — thine all, thine only. 
Like the one star above thee, bright and lonely ! 
Oh that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy' d. 
Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd ! 

The song is hush'd, the laughing nymphs are flown, 
And he is left, musing of bliss, alone; — 
Alone ! no, not alone ; that heavy sigh. 
That sob of grief, which broke from some one nigh, — 
Whose could it be? — alas ! is misery found 
Here, even here, on this enchanted ground? 
He turns, and sees a female form, close veil'd. 
Leaning, as if both heart and strength had fail'd. 
Against a pillar near, — not glittering o'er 
With gems and wreaths, such as the others wore, 
But in that deep blue, melancholy dress 
Bokhara's maidens wear, in mindfulness 



Of friends or kindred, dead or far away ; — 
And such as Zelica had on that day 
He left her, — when, with heart too full to speak. 
He took away her last warm tears upon his cheek. 






A strong emotion stirs within him, — more 
Than mere compassion ever waked before ; 
Unconsciously he opes his arms, while she 
Springs forward, as with life's last energy. 
But, swooning in that one convulsive bound. 
Sinks, ere she reach his arms, upon the ground. 
Her veil falls off, her faint hands clasp his knees, 
'T is she herself! — 't is Zelica he sees ! 
But, ah, so pale, so changed, 

none but a lover 
Could in that wreck 

of beauty's shrine 

discover 
The once adored 

divinity ! even he 
Stood for some mo- 
ments mute, and 

doubtingly 







Put back the ringlets from her brow, and gazed 
Upon those lids, where once such lustre blazed. 
Ere he could think she was indeed his own, 
Own darling maid, whom he so long had known 
In joy and sorrow, beautiful in both ; 
Who, e'en when grief was heaviest, — when loath 
He left her for the wars, — in that worst hour 
Sat in her sorrow like the sweet night flower. 
When darkness brings its weeping glories out, 
And spreads its sighs like frankincense about ! 

"Look up, my Zelica, — one moment show 
Those gentle eyes to me, that I may know 




Thy life, thy loveliness, is not all gone, 
But there, at least, shines as it ever shone. 
Come, look upon thy Azim, — one dear glance. 



( 64 ) 

Like those of old, were heaven ! whatever chance 
Hath brought thee here, oh, 't was a blessed one ! 
There — my sweet lids — • they move, — that kiss hath 

run 
Like the first shoot of life through every vein. 
And now I clasp her, mine, all mine again ! 
Oh the delight — now, in this very hour. 
When, had the whole rich world been in my power, 
I should have singled out thee, only thee, 
From the whole world's collected treasury, — 
To have thee here, — to hang thus fondly o'er 
My own best, purest Zelica once more ! " 

It was indeed the touch of those fond lips 
Upon her eyes that chased their short eclipse. 
And gradual, as the snow at heaven's breath 
Melts off and shows the azure flowers beneath. 
Her lids unclosed, and the bright eyes were seen. 
Gazing on his, — not, as they late had been. 
Quick, restless, wild, but mournfully serene ; 
As if to lie, e'en for that tranced minute. 
So near his heart, had consolation in it. 
And thus to wake in his beloved caress 
Took from her soul one half its wretchedness. 
But when she heard him call her good and pure, 
Oh, 't was too much, — • too dreadful to endure ! 
Shuddering, she broke away from his embrace. 
And, hiding with both hands her guilty face. 
Said, in a tone whose anguish would have riven 
A heart of very marble, " Pure? — O Heaven ! " 

That tone, — those looks so changed, — the with- 
ering blight 



( 6s ; 

That sin and sorrow leave where'er they light, — 

The dead despondency of those sunk eyes, 

Where once, had he thus met her by surprise, 

He would have seen himself, too happy boy, 

Reflected in a thousand lights of joy, — 

And then the place, that bright unholy place. 

Where vice lay hid beneath each winning grace 

And charm of luxury, as the viper weaves 

Its wily covering of sweet balsam-leaves, — 

All struck upon his heart, sudden and cold 

As death itself; it needs not to be told, — 

No, no, — he sees it all, plain as the brand 

Of burning shame can mark, — whate'er the hand 

That could from heaven and him such brightness 

sever, 
'T is done, — to heaven and him she 's lost forever ! 
It was a dreadful moment ; not the tears. 
The lingering, lasting misery of years, 
Could match that minute's anguish, — all the worst 
Of sorrow's elements in that dark burst 
Broke o'er his soul, and with one crash of fate 
Laid the whole hopes of his life desolate ! 

" Oh ! curse me not," she cried, as wild he toss'd 
His desperate hand towards heaven — " though I am 

lost. 
Think not that guilt, that falsehood, made me fall; 
No, no, — 'twas grief, 'twas madness, did it all! 
Nay, doubt me not; though all thy love hath 

ceased, — 
I know it hath, — yet, yet believe, at least, 
That every spark of reason's light must be 
Quench'd in this brain ere I could stray from thee ! 



They told me thou wert dead, — why, Azim, why 

Did we not, both of us, that instant die 

When we were parted? — oh ! couldst thou but know 

With what a deep devotedness of woe 

I wept thy absence, — o'er and o'er again 

Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain, 

And memory, like a drop that, night and day. 

Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away, — 

Didst thou but know how pale I sat at home. 

My eyes still turn'd the way thou wert to come. 

And, all the long, long night of hope and fear. 

Thy voice and step still sounding in my ear, — 

O God ! thou wouldst not wonder that, at last. 

When every hope was all at once o'ercast. 

When I heard frightful voices round me say 

Azim is dead! — this wretched brain gave way. 

And I became a wreck, at random driven, 

Without one glimpse of reason or of heaven, — 

All wild, — and even this quenchless love within 

Turn'd to foul fires to light me into sin ! 

Thou pitiest me, — I knew thou wouldst; that sky 

Hath nought beneath it half so lorn as I. 

The fiend, who lured me hither, — hist ! come near, 




Or thou too, thou art lost, if he should hear, — 
Told me such things — oh ! with such devilish art 
As would have ruin'd even a holier heart — 




Of thee, and of that ever-radiant sphere, 

Where bless'd at length, if I but served him here, 

I should forever live in thy dear sight, 



( 68 ) 

And drink from those pure eyes eternal lights 

Think, think how lost, how madden'd, I must be. 

To hope that guilt could lead to God or thee ! 

Thou weep'st for me, — do weep — oh that I durst 

Kiss off that tear ! but, no, — these lips are curst. 

They must not touch thee ; — one divine caress, 

One blessed moment of forgetfulness, 

I 've had within those arms, and that shall lie 

Shrined in my soul's deep memory till I die ! 

The last of joy's last relics here below. 

The one sweet drop, in all this waste of woe, 

My heart has treasured from affection's spring, 

To soothe and cool its deadly withering ! 

But thou — yes, thou must go — forever go ; 

This place is not for thee — for thee ! oh, no ! 

Did I but tell thee half, thy tortured brain 

Would burn like mine, and mine go wild again ! 

Enough that Guilt reigns here, — that hearts once good. 

Now tainted, chill'd, and broken, are his food ; 

Enough that we are parted, — that there rolls 

A flood of headlong fate between our souls. 

Whose darkness severs me as wide from thee 

As hell from heaven, to all eternity ! " — 

" Zelica ! Zelica ! " the youth exclaim'd, 
In all the tortures of a mind inflamed 
Almost to madness, " by that sacred heaven. 
Where yet, if prayers can move, thou 'It be forgiven 
As thou art here — here in this writhing heart, 
All sinful, wild, and ruin'd as thou art ! 
By the remembrance of our once pure love, 
Which, like a churchyard light, still burns above 
The grave of our lost souls, — which guilt in thee 



( 69 ) 

Cannot extinguish, nor despair in me ! — 
I do conjure, implore thee to fly hence ; 
If thou hast yet one spark of innocence, 
Fly with me from this place — " 

" With thee'! oh, bliss, 
'T is worth whole years of torment to hear this. 
What ! take the lost one with thee ? — let her rove 
By thy dear side, as in those days of love. 
When we were both so happy, both so pure — 
Too heavenly dream ! if there 's on earth a cure 
For the sunk heart, 't is this, ■ — day after day 
To be the blest companion of thy way ; 
To hear thy angel eloquence ; to see 
Those virtuous eyes forever turn'd on me. 
And in their light re-chasten'd silently, — 
Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun, 
Grow pure by being purely shone upon. 
And thou wilt pray for me, — I know thou wilt: 
At the dim vesper hour, when thoughts of guilt 
Come heaviest o'er the heart, thou 'It lift thine eyes, 
Full of sweet tears, into the darkening skies. 
And plead for me with Heaven, till I can dare 
To fix my own weak, sinful glances there; 
Till the good angels, when they see me cling 
Forever near thee, pale and sorrowing. 
Shall for thy sake pronounce my soul forgiven. 
And bid thee take thy weeping slave to heaven : 
Oh, yes, I '11 fly with thee — " 

Scarce had she said 
These breathless words, when a voice deep and dread 
As that of Monker, waking up the dead 
From their first sleep, — so startling 't was to both, — 



Rung through the casement near, " Thy oath ! thy 

oath ! " 
O Heaven, the ghasthness of that Maid's look ! — 
" 'T is he," faintly she cried, while terror shook 
Her inmost core, nor durst she lift her eyes, 
Though through the casement now nought but the 
skies 
And moonlight fields were seen, calm as before, — 
" 'T is he, and I am his — all, all is o'er — 
Go — fly this instant, or thou 'rt ruin'd too — 
My oath, my oath, O God ! 't is all too true, 
True as the worm in this cold heart it is — 
I am Mokanna's bride — his, Azim, his- 
The dead stood round us, while I spoke that 

vow. 
Their blue lips echoed it — I hear them now! 
Their eyes glared on me while I pledged that 
bowl; 




•VilJ-Wiui.. 



'T was burning blood — I feel it in my soul ! 

And the Veiled Bridegroom — hist ! I 've seen to-nig' 

What angels know not of, — so foul a sight, 

So horrible — oh ! never mayst thou see 

What there lies hid from all but hell and me ! 

But I must hence — off, off — I am not thine. 

Nor Heaven's, nor Love's, nor nought that is divine — 

Hold me not — ha! — think'st thou the fiends that 

sever 
Hearts, cannot sunder hands? — thus, then — for-) 

ever ! " 





-^-^\s:Wi^^~~ 






With all that strength which madness lends the weak. 
She flung away his arms ; and with a shriek. 
Whose sound, though he should linger out more years 
Than wretch e'er told, can never leave his ears. 
Flew up through that long avenue of light, 
Fleetly as some dark, ominous bird of night 
Across the sun, and soon was out of sight ! 



( 72 ) 

Lalla RooKH could think of nothing all day 
but the misery of these two young lovers. Her 
gayety was gone, and she looked pensively even 
upon Fadladeen. She felt too, without knowing why, 
a sort of uneasy pleasure in imagining that Azim 
must have been just such a youth as Feramorz ; just 
as worthy to enjoy all the blessings, without any of 
the pangs, of that illusive passion, which too often, 
like the sunny apples of Istakhar, is all sweetness on 
one side, and all bitterness on the other. 

As they passed along a sequestered river after sun- 
set, they saw a young Hindoo girl upon the bank, 
whose employment seemed to them so strange that 
they stopped their palankeens to observe her. She 
had lighted a small lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and 
placing it in an earthen dish, adorned with a wreath 
of flowers, had committed it with a trembling hand to 
the stream, and was now anxiously watching its pro- 
gress down the current, heedless of the gay cavalcade 
which had drawn up beside her. Lalla Rookh was 
all curiosity ; when one of her attendants, who had 
lived upon the banks of the Ganges (where this 
ceremony is so frequent that often, in the dusk of 
the evening, the river is seen glittering all over with 
lights, like the Oton-tala, or Sea of Stars), informed 
the Princess that it was the usual way in which 
the friends of those who had gone on dangerous voy- 
ages offered up vows for their safe return. If the 
lamp sunk immediately, the omen was disastrous ; 
but if it went shining down the stream, and continued 
to burn until entirely out of sight, the return of the 
beloved object was considered as certain. 

Lalla Rookh, as they moved on, more than once 
looked back, to observe how the young Hindoo's 



( 71 ) 

lamp proceeded ; and while she saw with pleasure 
that it was still unextinguished, she could not help 
fearing that all the hopes of this life were no better 
than that feeble hght upon the river. The remainder 
of the journey was passed in silence. She now, for 
the first time, felt that shade of melancholy which 
comes over the youthful maiden's heart, as sweet and 
transient as her own breath upon a mirror ; nor was 
it till she heard the lute of Feramorz, touched lightly 
at the door of her pavilion, that she waked from the 
reverie in which she had been wandering. Instantly 
her eyes were lighted up with pleasure, and, after a 
few unheard remarks from Fadladeen upon the inde- 
corum of a poet seating himself in presence of a prin- 
cess, everything was arranged as on the preceding 
evening, and all listened with eagerness, while the 
story was thus continued : — 

Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way, 

Where all was waste and silent yesterday? 

This City of War which, in a few short hours, 

Hath sprung up here, as if the magic powers 

Of him who, in the twinkling of a star, 

Built the high pillar'd halls of Chilminar, 

Had conjured up, far as the eye can see. 

This world of tents and domes and sun-bright 

armory ! — 
Princely pavilions, screen'd by many a fold 
Of crimson cloth, and topp'd with balls of gold ; 
Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun, 
Their chains and poitrels glittering in the sun ; 
And camels, tufted o'er with Yemen's shells, 
Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells ! 




But yester-eve, so motionless around, 
So mute was this wide plain, that not a sound 
But the far torrent, or the locust-bird 
Hunting among the thickets, could be heard ; 
Yet, hark 1 what discords now, of every kind, 
Shouts, laughs, and screams, are revelling in the wind ! 
The neigh of cavalry ; the tinkling throngs 
Of laden camels and their drivers' songs ; 
Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze 
Of streamers from ten thousand canopies ; 
War-music, bursting out from time to time 




I 



AVith gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime ; 
Or, in the pause, when liarsher sounds are mute, 
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute, 
That far off, broken by the eagle note 
Of th' Abyssinian trumpet, swell and float ! 



Who leads this mighty army? — ask ye " who? ' 
And mark ye not those banners of dark hue, 



( 76 ) 

The Night and Shadow, over yonder tent ! — 
It is the Cahph's glorious armament. 
Roused in his palace by the dread alarms, 
That hourly came, of the false Prophet's arms. 
And of his host of infidels, who hurl'd 
Defiance fierce at Islam and the world : 
Though worn with Grecian warfare, and behind 
The veils of his bright palace calm reclined, 
Yet brook'd he not such blasphemy should stain, 
Thus unrevenged, the evening of his reign. 
But, having sworn upon the Holy Grave 
To conquer or to perish, once more gave 
His shadowy banners proudly to the breeze, 
And with an army nursed in victories, 
Here stands to crush the rebels that o'errun 
His blest and beauteous province of the sun. 

Ne'er did the march of Mahadi display 
Such pomp before; — not e'en when on his way 
To Mecca's temple, when both land and sea 
Were spoil'd to feed the pilgrim's luxury; 
When round him, 'mid the burning sands, he saw 
Fruits of the north in icy freshness thaw. 
And cool'd his thirsty lip, beneath the glow 
Of Mecca's sun, with urns of Persian snow ; — 
Nor e'er did armament more grand than that 
Pour from the kingdoms of the Caliphat. 
First, in the van, the People of the Rock, 
On their light mountain steeds, of royal stock ; 
Then chieftains of Damascus, proud to see 
The flashing of their swords' rich marquetry ; — 
Men from the regions near the Volga's mouth, 
Mix'd with the rude, black archers of the south ; 



( 77 ) 

And Indian lancers, in white-turban'd ranks 
From the far Sinde, or Attock's sacred banks, 
With dusky legions from the Land of Myrrh, 
And many a mace-arm'd Moor and Mid-Sea islander. 

Nor less in number, though more new and rude 
In warfare's school, was the vast multitude 
That, fired by zeal, or by oppression wrong'd. 
Round the white standard of th' impostor throng'd. 
Beside his thousands of believers, — blind. 
Burning and headlong as the Samiel wind, — 
Many who felt, and more who fear'd to feel, 
The bloody Islamite's converting steel, 
Flock'd to his banner ; — chiefs of th' Uzbek race, 
Waving their heron crests with martial grace ; 
Turkomans, countless as their flocks, led forth 
From th' aromatic pastures of the north ; 
Wild warriors of the turquoise hills, — and those 
Who dwell beyond the everlasting snows 
Of Hindoo Kosh, in stormy freedom bred. 
Their fort the rock, their camp the torrent's bed. 
But none, of all who own'd the Chief's command, 
Rush'd to that battle-field with bolder hand 
Or sterner hate than Iran's outlaw'd men. 
Her Worshippers of Fire, — all panting then 
For vengeance on th' accursed Saracen ; 
Vengeance at last for their dear country spurn'd. 
Her throne usurp'd, and her bright shrines o'erturn'd. 
From Yezd's eternal Mansion of the Fire, 
Where aged saints in dreams of heaven expire; 
From Badku, and those fountains of blue flame 
That burn into the Caspian, — fierce they came; 




Such was the wild and miscellaneous host 
That high in air their motley banners toss'd 
Around the Prophet-Chief, — all eyes still bent 
Upon that glittering Veil, where'er it went. 
That beacon through the battle's stormy flood, 
That rainbow of the field, whose showers were blood ! 



Twice hath the sun upon their conflict set. 
And ris'n again, and found them grappling yet ; 
While streams of carnage, in his noontide blaze, 




Smoke'=ffp to heaven, --T-liotJaS"m:afcrimson hazg,^^^^ 
By which the prostr-ate"caVavanTi^aW-ed,;,^;^sM^f^''^^^*"" 
In the red Desert, when the wind 's abpsad ! 



■^ 



" On, Swords of God ! " the panting Caliph calls, — 

" Thrones for the living, — heaven for him who falls ! " 

" On, brave avengers, on," Mokanna cries, 

" And Eblis blast the recreant slave that flies ! " 

Now comes the brunt, the crisis of the day — 

They clash — they strive — the Caliph's troops give 

way! 
Mokanna's self plucks the black Banner down, 



:*!*'■- 



/•7 



( So ) 

And now the Orient World's imperial crown 

Is just within his grasp — when, hark, that shout ! 

Some hand hath check'd the flying Moslems' rout 

And now they turn — they rally — at their head 

A warrior (like those angel youths, who led, 

In glorious panoply of heaven's own mail. 

The Champions of the Faith through Beder's vale), 

Bold as if gifted with ten thousand lives, 

Turns on the fierce pursuers' blades, and drives 

At once the multitudinous torrent back. 

While hope and courage kindle in his track. 

And, at each step, his bloody falchion makes 

Terrible vistas through which victory breaks ! 

In vain Mokanna, 'midst the general flight. 

Stands, like the red moon, on some stormy night. 

Among the fugitive clouds that, hurrying by, 

Leave only her unshaken in the sky ! — 

In vain he yells his desperate curses out. 

Deals death promiscuously to all about. 

To foes that charge and coward friends that fly, 

And seems of all the great Arch-enemy ! 

The panic spreads — "a miracle ! " throughout 

The Moslem ranks, " a miracle ! " they shout. 

All gazing on that youth, whose coming seems 

A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams ; 

And every sword, true as o'er billows dim 

The needle tracks the loadstar, following him ! 

Right tow'rds Mokanna now he cleaves his path, 
Impatient cleaves, as though the bolt of wrath 
He bears from heaven withheld its awful burst 
From weaker heads, and souls but half-way curst, 
To break o'er him, the mightiest and the worst ! 



( 8i ) 

But vain his speed — though, in that hour of blood, 
Had all God's seraphs round Mokanna stood. 
With swords of fire, ready like fate to fall, 
Mokanna's soul would have defied them all ; — 
Yet now the rush of fugitives, too strong 
For human force, hurries even him along; 
In vain he struggles 'mid the wedged array 
Of flying thousands, — he is borne away; 
And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows 
In this forced flight is — murdering as he goes ! 
As a grim tiger, whom the torrent's might 
Surprises in some parch'd ravine at night, 
Turns, even in drowning, on the wretched flocks 
Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks, 
And, to the last, devouring on his way. 
Bloodies the stream he hath not power to stay ! 

"Alia ilia Alia! " the glad shout renew — 
" Alia Akbar ! " — the Caliph 's in Merou. 
Hang out your gilded tapestry in the streets, 
And light your shrines and chant your ziraleets ; 
The Swords of God have triumph'd, — on his throne 
Your Caliph sits, and the Veil'd Chief hath flown. 
Who does not envy that young warrior now, 
To whom the Lord of Islam bends his brow. 
In all the graceful gratitude of power. 
For his throne's safety in that perilous hour? 
Who doth not wonder, when, amidst th' acclaim 
Of thousands, heralding to heaven his name, — 
'Mid all those holier harmonies of fame, 
Which sound along the path of virtuous souls, 
Like music round a planet as it rolls ! — 
He turns away, coldly as if some gloom 



Hung o'er his heart no triumphs can illume, — 
Some sightless grief, upon whose blasted gaze 
Though glory's light may play, in vain it plays ! 
Yes, wretched Azim ! thine is such a grief, 
Beyond all hope, all terror, all relief; 
A dark, cold calm, which nothing now can break, 
Or warm, or brighten, — like that Syrian lake 
Upon whose surface morn and summer shed 
Their smiles in vain, for all beneath is dead ! — 
Hearts there have been, o'er which tliis weight of woe 
Came, by long use of suffering, tame and slow ; 
But thine, lost youth ! was sudden, — over thee 
It broke at once, when all seem'd ecstasy ; 
When Hope look'd up, and saw the gloomy past 
Melt into splendor, and Bliss dawn at last, — 
'T was then, even then, o'er joys so freshly blown, 
This mortal blight of misery came down ; 
Even then the full, warm gushings of thy heart 
Were check'd, — like fount-drops, frozen as they start ! 
And there, like them, cold, sunless relics hang, 
Each fix'd and chill'd into a lasting pang ! 




I 



One sole desire, one passion now remains. 
To keep life's fever still within his veins, — 
Vengeance ! — dire vengeance on the wretch who cast 
O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast. 
For this, when rumors reach'd him in his flight 
Far, far away, after that fatal night, — 
Rumors of armies, thronging to th' attack 
Of the Veil'd Chief, — for this he wing'd him bac]| 
Fleet as the vulture speeds to flags unfurl'd. 
And, when all hope seem'd desperate, wildly hurlj 



Himself into the scale, and saved a world ! 
-For this he still lives on, careless of all 




The wreaths that glory on his path lets fall';/ 
For this alone exists, — like lightning fire'" 
To speed one bolt of vengeance, and expire ! 

But safe as yet that Spirit of Evil lives ; 
With a small band of desperate fugitives, 



( 84 ). 

The last sole stubborn fragment left unriven 
Of the proud host that late stood fronting heaven, 
He gain'd Merou, — breathed a short curse of blood 
O'er his lost throne, — then pass'd the Jihon's flood, 
And gathering all whose madness of belief 
Still saw a savior in their down-fallen Chief, 
Raised the white banner within Neksheb's gates, 
And there, untamed, th' approaching conqueror waits. 

Of all his haram, all that busy hive. 
With music and with sweets sparkling alive. 
He took but one, the partner of his flight, — 
One, not for love, not for her beauty's light — 
No, Zelica stood withering 'midst the gay, 
Wan as the blossom that fell yesterday 
From th' Alma tree and dies, while overhead 
To-day's young flower is springing in its stead ! 
Oh, not for love, — the deepest damn'd must be 
Touch'd with heaven's glory, ere such fiends as he 
Can feel one glimpse of love's divinity ! 
But no, she is his victim ; there lie all 
Her charms for him, — charms that can never pall, 
As long as hell within his heart can stir, 
Or one faint trace of heaven is left in her. 
To work an angel's ruin, — to behold 
As white a page as virtue e'er unroll'd 
Blacken, beneath his touch, into a scroll 
Of damning sins, seal'd with a burning soul, — 
This is his triumph ; this the joy accursed. 
That ranks him among demons all but first ! 
This gives the victim, that before him lies 
Blighted and lost, a glory in his eyes, 
A light like that with which hell-fire illumes 
The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes ! 



( 85 ) 

But other tasks now wait him, — tasks that need 
All the deep daringness of thought and deed 
With which the Dives have gifted him ; for mark, 
Over yon plains, which night had else made dark, 
Those lanterns, countless as the winged lights 
That spangle India's fields on showery nights, 
Far as their formidable gleams they shed, 
The mighty tents of the beleaguerer spread, 
Glimmering along th' horizon's dusky line. 
And thence in nearer circles, till they shine 
Among the founts and groves, o'er which the town 
In all its arm'd magnificence looks down. 
Yet, fearless, from his lofty battlements 
Mokanna views that multitude of tents ; 
Nay, smiles to think that, though entoil'd, beset. 
Not less than myriads dare to front him yet, — 
That friendless, throneless, he thus stands at bay. 
Even thus a match for myriads such as they ! 
"" Oh for a sweep of that dark Angel's wing, 
Who brush'd the thousands of th' Assyrian king 
To darkness in a moment, that I might 
People hell's chambers with yon host to-night ! 
But come what may, let who will grasp the throne, 
Caliph or prophet, Man alike shall groan ; 
Let who will torture him, — priest, caliph, king, — 
Alike this loathsome world of his shall ring 
With victims' shrieks and bowlings of the slave, — 
Sounds that shall glad me even within my grave ! " 
Thus to himself — but to the scanty train, 
Still left around him, a far different strain : 
■" Glorious defenders of the sacred crown 
I bear from heaven, whose light nor blood shall drown 




Nor shadowy of earth eclipse; before whose' gems " 
The paly porap of this world's diadems, - _ - < 

The crown of Gerashid, the pillar'd throne , _ . p-'^^yL 
Of Parviz, and the heron crest that shone, - , ■* _ - "^ 

Magnificent, o'er All's beauteous eyes, ,, J^/'' 

Fade like the stars when morn is in the skies !' '-'' ; 
Warriors, rejoice, ^;— the port, to which we 'X^epass'd 
O'er destiny's dark wave, beams out at last : 
Victory 's our own, — 't is written , in that book 
Upon whose leaves none but the angels look, --■ ^ 
That Islam's sceptre shall beneath the power 
Of her great foe fall broken in that hour 



,-f: 



When the moon's mighty orb before all eyes 
From Neksheb's Holy Well portentously shall rise ! 
Now turn and see ! — " 

They turn'd, and, as he spoke, 
A sudden splendor all around them broke ; 
And they beheld an orb, ample and bright. 
Rise from the Holy Well, and cast its light 
Round the rich city and the plain for miles, 
Flinging such radiance o'er the gilded tiles 
Of many a dome and fair-roof'd imaret 




As autumn suns shed round them when they set ! 
Instant from all who saw th' illusive sign, 
A murmur broke, — " Miraculous ! divine ! " 
The Gheber bow'd, thinking his idol star 
Had waked, and burst impatient through the bar 
Of midnight to inflame him to the war ! 
While he of Moussa's creed saw in that ray 
The glorious light which, in his freedom's day. 
Had rested on the Ark, and now again 
Shone out to bless the breaking of his chain ! 



( 88 ) 

" To victory ! " is at once the cry of all — 
Nor stands Mokanna loitering at that call; 
But instant the huge gates are flung aside, 
And forth, like a diminutive mountain-tide 
Into the boundless sea, they speed their course 
Right on into the Moslem's mighty force. 
The watchmen of the camp — who, in their rounds, 
Had paused, and even forgot the punctual sounds 
Of the small drum with which they count the night. 
To gaze upon that supernatural light — 
Now sink beneath an unexpected arm. 
And in a death-groan give their last alarm. 
" On for the lamps that light yon lofty screen. 
Nor blunt your blades with massacre so mean ; 
There rests the Caliph — speed — one lucky lance 
May now achieve mankind's deliverance ! " 
Desperate the die, — such as they only cast. 
Who venture for a world, and stake their last. 
But Fate 's no longer with him, — blade for blade 
Springs up to meet them through the glimmering 

shade ; 
And, as the clash is heard, new legions soon 
Pour to the spot, — like bees of Kauzeroon 
To the shrill timbrel's summons, — till at length 
The mighty camp swarms out in all its strength. 
And back to Neksheb's gates, covering the plain 
With random slaughter, drives the adventurous train ; 
Among the last of whom the Silver Veil 
Is seen glittering at times, like the white sail 
Of some toss'd vessel, on a stormy night. 
Catching the tempest's momentary light. 

And hath not this brought the proud spirit low. 
Nor dash'd his brow, nor check'd his daring? No ! 



( 89 ) 

Though half the wretches whom at night he led 
To thrones and victory, lie disgraced and dead, 
Yet morning hears him, with unshrinking crest, 
Still vaunt of thrones and victory to the rest ; 
And they believe him ! — oh ! the lover may 
Distrust that look that steals his soul away; 
The babe may cease to think that it can play 
With heaven's rainbow; alchemists may doubt 
The shining gold their crucible gives out; — 
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast 
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. 

And well th' impostor knew all lures and arts 
That Lucifer e'er taught to tangle hearts ; 
Nor, 'mid these last bold workings of his plot 
Against men's souls, is Zelica forgot. 
Ill-fated Zelica ! had reason been 
Awake, through half the horrors thou hast seen. 
Thou never couldst have borne it, — death had come 
At once, and taken thy wrung spirit home. 
But 'twas not so, — a torpor, a suspense 
Of thought, almost of life, came o'er th' intense 
And passionate struggles of that fearful night. 
When her last hope of peace and heaven took flight; 
And though, at times, a gleam of frenzy broke, — 
As through some dull volcano's veil of smoke 
Ominous flashings now and then will start, 
Which show the fire still busy at its heart ; 
Yet was she mostly wrapp'd in sullen gloom, — 
Not such as Azim's, brooding o'er its doom. 
And calm without, as is the brow of death, 
While busy worms are gnawing underneath ! — 
But in a blank and 'pulseless torpor, free 
From thought of pain, a seal'd up apathy, 




'Which left her oft, with scarce one Hving thrill, 
The cold, pale victim of her torturer's will. 

I Again, as in Merou, he had her deck'd 

^ : Gorgeously out, the Priestess of the sect ; 
And led her glittering forth before the eyes 
Of his rude train, as to a sacrifice : 
Pallid as she, the young, devoted Bride 
Of the fierce Nile, when, deck'd in all the pride 
Of nuptial pomp, she sinks into his tide ! 
And while the wretched maid hung down her head, 
And stood, as one just risen from the dead. 
Amid that gazing crowd, the fiend would tell 
His credulous slaves it was some charm or spell 
Possess'd her now, and from that darken'd trance 
Should dawn erelong their faith's deliverance. 
Or if at times, goaded by guilty shame. 
Her soul was roused, and words of wildness came. 
Instant the bold blasphemer would translate 
Her ravings into oracles of fate, 
Would hail heaven's signals in her flashing eyes. 
And call her shrieks the language of the skies ! 

But vain at length his arts, — despair is seen 
Gathering around ; and famine comes to glean 



All that the sword had left unreap'd ; — in vain 
At morn and eve across the northern plain 
He looks impatient for the promised spears 
Of the wild hordes and Tartar mountaineers ; 
They come not, — while his fierce beleaguerers 

pour 
Engines of havoc in, unknown before, 
And horrible as new; — javelins that fly 
Enwreathed with smoky flames through the dark 

sky; 
And red-hot globes that, opening as they mount, 
Discharge, as from a kindled naphtha fount, 
Showers of consuming fire o'er all below, — 
Looking, as through th' illumined night 

they go. 
Like those wild birds that by the Magians 

oft, 
At festivals of fire, were sent aloft 
Into the air, with blazing fagots tied 
To their huge wings, scattering combustion 

wide ! 
All night the groans of wretches who^expif^ 
In agony beneath these darts of fire', / 
Ring through the city ; while, 

descending o'er 
Its shrines and domes and 
streets of sycamore, ■ 
Its lone bazars, with 
their bright cloths 
of gold, 
Since the last peace- 
ful pageant left 
unroU'd, — 




( 92 ) I 

Its beauteous marble baths, whose idle jets j 

Now gush with blood, — and its tall minarets, ; 

I 

That late have stood up in the evening glare : 

Of the red sun, unhallow'd by a prayer, — ! 

O'er each, in turn, the dreadful flame-bolts fall, •■ 

And death and conflagration throughout all 1 

The desolate city hold high festival ! i 



Mokanna sees the world is his no more ; \ 
One sting at parting, and his grasp is o'er. 

"What! drooping now?" — thus, with unblushing i 

cheek, 
He hails the few who yet can hear him speak, 
Of all those famish'd slaves around him lying, 

And by the light of blazing temples dying, — '■ 

"What! drooping now? — now, when at length we '\ 

press I 

Home o'er the very threshold of success : 1 

1 

When Alia from our ranks hath thinn'd away ; 

Those grosser branches, that kept out his ray '\ 

Of favor from us, and we stand at length ^ 

Heirs of his light and children of his strength, — ; 

The chosen few, who shall survive the fall 

Of kings and thrones, triumphant over all ! \ 

Have you then lost, weak murmurers as you are, : 

All faith in him who was your Light, your Star? ; 

Have you forgot the eyes of glory hid : 

Beneath this Veil, the flashing of whose lid ! 

Could, like a sun-stroke of the desert, wither j 

Millions of such as yonder chief brings hither? i 

Long have its lightnings slept, — too long, — but now, 

All earth shall feel th' unveiling of this brow ! J 



( 93 ) 

To-night, — yes, sainted men ! this very night, 

I bid you all to a fair festal rite, 

Where, having deep refresh'd each weary limb 

With viands, such as feast heaven's cherubim. 

And kindled up your souls, now sunk and dim. 

With that pure wine the Dark-eyed Maids above 

Keep, seal'd with precious musk, for those they love, 

I will myself uncurtain in your sight 

The wonders of this brow's ineffable light ; 

Then lead you forth, and with a wink disperse 

Yon myriads, howling through the universe ! " 

Eager they listen, while each accent darts 
New life into their chill'd and hope-sick hearts, — 
Such treacherous life as the cool draught supplies 
To him upon the stake, who drinks and dies ! 
Wildly they point their lances to the light 
Of the fast-sinking sun, and shout " To-night ! " — 
" To-night," their Chief re-echoes, in a voice 
Of fiend-like mockery that bids hell rejoice ! 
Deluded victims — never hath this earth 
Seen mourning half so mournful as their mirth! 
Here, to the few whose iron frames had stood 
This racking waste of famine and of blood, 
Faint, dying wretches clung, from whom the shout 
Of triumph like a maniac's laugh broke out; 
There, others, lighted by the smouldering fire, 
Danced, like wan ghosts about a funeral pyre, 
Among the dead and dying, strew'd around ; 
While some pale wretch look'd on, and from his 

wound 
Plucking the fiery dart by which he bled, 
In ghastly transport waved it o'er his head ! 



'T was more than midnight now, — a fearful pause 
Had foUow'd the long shout, the wild applause, 
That lately from those Royal Gardens burst, 
Where the Veil'd Demon held his feast accurst, 
When Zelica — alas, poor ruin'd heart, 

In every horror doom'd to bear its part ! — 
\yas bidden to the banquet by a slave, 
Wiio, while his quivering lip the summons 
gave, 
^w black, as though the shadows of the 
grave 
pass'd him round, and, ere he could 
repeat 
l^essage through, fell lifeless at her 

feet ! 
Shuddering she went : a soul-felt pang 

- of fear, 
A presage, that her own dark doom 
was near, 
Roused every feeling, and brought 
reason back 
Once more, to writhe her last upon 
the rack. 
All round seem'd tranquil, — 
even the foe had 
ceased. 




As if aware of that demoniac feast, 

His fiery bolts ; and though the heavens look'd red, 

'T was but some distant conflagration's spread. 

But, hark ! — she stops — she hstens — dreadful tone ! 

'T is her Tormentor's laugh; and now, a groan, 

A long death-groan, comes with it, — can this be. 

The place of mirth, the bower of revelry? 




( 96 ) 

She enters, — holy Alia, what a sight 
Was there before her ! By the glimmering light 
Of the pale dawn, mix'd with the flare of brands 
That round lay burning, dropp'd from lifeless hands, 
She saw the board, in splendid mockery spread. 
Rich censers breathing, — garlands overhead, — 
The urns, the cups, from which they late had quaff'd. 
All gold and gems, but — what had been the 

draught? 
Oh ! who need ask that saw those livid guests, 
With their swollen heads sunk blackening on their 

breasts. 
Or looking pale to heaven with glassy glare 
As if they sought, but saw, no mercy there ; 
As if they felt, though poison rack'd them through. 
Remorse the deadlier torment of the two ! 
While some, the bravest, hardiest in the train 
Of their false Chief, who on the battle-plain 
Would have met death with transport by his side, 
Here mute and helpless gasp'd ; but, as they died, 
Look'd horrible vengeance with their eyes' last strain. 
And clench'd the slackening hand at him in vain. 

Dreadful it was to see the ghastly stare, 
The stony look of horror and despair. 
Which some of these expiring victims cast 
Upon their souls' tormentor to the last, — 
Upon that mocking fiend, whose Veil, now raised, 
Show'd them, as in death's agony they gazed. 
Not the long-promised light, the brow, whose 

beaming 
Was to come forth, all conquering, all redeeming. 
But features horribler than hell e'er traced 



( 97 ) 

On its own brood ; — no demon of the waste, 

No churchyard ghole, caught hngering in the Hght 

Of the bless'd sun, e'er blasted human sight 

With Hneaments so foul, so fierce, as those 

Th' impostor now, in grinning mockery, shows : 

"There, ye wise saints, behold your Light, your 

Star, — 
Ye would be dupes and victims, and ye are. 
Is it enough? or must I, while a thrill 
Lives in your sapient bosoms, cheat you still? 
Swear that the burning death ye feel within 
Is but the trance with which heaven's joys begin ; 
That this foul visage, foul as e'er disgraced 
Even monstrous man, is — after God's own taste ; 
And that — but see ! — ere I have half-way said 
My greetings through, th' uncourteous souls are fled. 
Farewell, sweet spirits ! not in vain ye die. 
If Eblis loves you half so well as I. — 
Ha, my young bride! — 'tis well, — take thou thy 

seat; 
Nay, come — no shuddering — didst thou never meet 
The dead before? — they grrced our wedding, sweet; 
And these, my guests to-night, have brimm'd so true 
Their parting cups, that tJioii shalt pledge one too. 
But — how is this? — all empty? all drunk up? 
Hot lips have been before thee in the cup. 
Young bride, — yet stay — one precious drop remains, 
Enough to warm a gentle Priestess' veins ; 
Here, drink, — and should thy lover's conquering 

arms 
Speed hither, ere thy lip lose all its charms. 
Give him but half this venom in thy kiss. 
And I '11 forgive my haughty rival's bliss ! 






dSir fl^ " ^o*" ^^ — I too must die ; but not like these 
^% ' Vile, rankling things, to fester in the breeze, — 
To have this brow in ruffian triumph shown, 
With all death's grimness added to its own, 
And rot to dust beneath the taunting eyes 
Of slaves, exclaiming, ' There his Godship lies ! ' — 
No; cursed race, — since first my soul drew breath, 
They 've been my dupes, and s/ia// be, even in death. 
Thou see'st yon cistern in the shade, — 't is fill'd 
With burning drugs, for this last hour distill'd ; 
There will I plunge me in that liquid flame, — 
Fit bath to lave a dying prophet's frame ! — 
There perish, all, — ere pulse of thine shall fail, — 
Nor leave one limb to tell mankind the tale. 
So shall my votaries, wheresoe'er they rave, 
Proclaim that Heaven took back the saint it gave ; 
That I 've but vanish'd from this earth awhile. 
To come again with bright unshrouded smile ! 
So shall they build me altars in their zeal. 
Where knaves shall minister and fools shall kneel ; 
Where Faith may mutter o'er her mystic spell. 

Written in blood, and Bigotry may swell 
The sail he spreads for heaven with blasts 
from hell ! 




So shall my banner through 

long ages be 
The rallying sign of fraud 

and anarchy; 
Kings yet unborn shall rue 

Mokanna's name, 
And, though I die, my spirit, 

still the same. 
Shall walk abroad in all the 

stormy strife, ■ 
And guilt, and blood, that 

were its bliss in life ! 
But, hark! their battering- 
i engine shakes the 
j wall — 
■Wliy, let it shake — thus I 

can brave them all. 
No trace of me shall greet 

them, when they come, 
And I can trust thy faith, for 
' — thou 'It be dumb. 
Now mark how readily a 

wretch like me, 
In one bold plunge, com- 
mences Deity ! " — ■ 

He sprung and sunk, as 
ilA the last words were 
said: 
ick closed the burning 
[^' waters o'er his head, 
I And Zelica was left — within 

the ring 
Of those wide walls the only 

living thing ; 
The only wretched one, still 
cursed with breath, 




( loo ) 

In all that frightful wilderness of death ! 

More like some bloodless ghost, — such as, they tell, 

In the lone Cities of the Silent dwell. 

And there, unseen by all but Alia, sit 

Each by its own pale carcass, watching it. 

But morn is up, and a fresh warfare stirs 
Throughout the camp of the beleaguerers. 
Their globes of fire (the dread artillery, lent 
By Greece to conquering Mahadi) are spent; 
And now the scorpion's shaft, the quarry sent 
From high ballistas, and the shielded throng 
Of soldiers swinging the huge ram along, — 
All speak th' impatient Islamite's intent 
To try, at length, if tower and battlement 
And bastion'd wall be not less hard to win. 
Less tough to break down, than the hearts within. 
First in impatience and in toil is he. 
The burning Azim — oh ! could he but see 
Th' impostor once alive within his grasp, 
Not the gaunt lion's hug, nor boa's clasp, 
Could match that gripe of vengeance, or keep pace 
With the fell heartiness of hate's embrace ! 

Loud rings the ponderous ram against the walls ; 
Now shake the ramparts, now a buttress falls. 
But still no breach — " Once more, one mighty swing 
Of all your beams, together thundering ! " 
There — the wall shakes ; the shouting troops exult — 
" Quick, quick discharge your weightiest catapult 
Right on that spot, and Neksheb is our own ! " 
'Tis done, — the battlements come crashing down; 
And the huge wall, by that stroke riven in two, 
Yawning like some old crater, rent anew. 
Shows the dim, desolate city smoking through ! 



( loi ) 

But strange ! no signs of life, — nought living seen 
Above, below, — what can this stillness mean ? 
A minute's pause suspends all hearts and eyes — 
" In through the breach," impetuous Azim cries ; 
But the cool Caliph, fearful of some wile 
In this blank stillness, checks the troops awhile. 
Just then a figure, with slow step, advanced 
Forth from the ruin'd walls, and, as there glanced 
A sunbeam over it, all eyes could see 
'The well-known Silver Veil ! — " 'T is he, 't is he, 
Mokanna, and alone ! " they shout around ; 
Young Azim from his steed springs to the ground — 
" Mine, holy Caliph ! mine," he cries, " the task 
To crush yon daring wretch, — 'tis all I ask." 
Eager he darts to meet the demon foe. 
Who, still across wide heaps of ruin, slow 
And falteringly comes, till they are near ; 
Then, with a bound, rushes on Azim's spear. 
And casting off the Veil in falling, shows — 
Oh ! — 't is his Zelica's life-blood that flows ! 

"I meant not, Azim," soothingly she said. 
As on his trembling arm she lean'd her head, 
And, looking in his face, saw anguish there 
Beyond all wounds the quivering flesh can bear — 
" I meant not thoii. shouldst have the pain of this ; — 
Though death, with thee thus tasted, is a bliss 
Thou wouldst not rob me of, didst thou but know 
How oft I 've pray'd to God I might die so ! 
But the fiend's venom was too scant and slow; — 
To linger on were maddening — and I thought 
If once that Veil — nay, look not on it — caught 
The eyes of your fierce soldiery, I should be 






Struck by a thousand death-darts instantly. 
But this is sweeter — oh, believe me, yes — 
I would not change this sad, but dear caress. 
This death within thy arms I would not give 
For the most smiling life the happiest live ! 
All, that stood dark and drear before the eye 
^\ . Of my stray'd soul, is passing swiftly by : 

A light comes o'er me from those looks of 

love, 
Like the first dawn of mercy from above ; 
And if thy lips but tell me I 'm forgiven, 

:'--•'■ Angels will echo the blest words in heaven ! 

But live, my Azim; — oh ! to call thee mine 
Thus once again ! my Azim — dream divine ! 
Live, if thou ever lovedst me, if to meet 
Thy Zelica hereafter would be sweet, — 
Oh, live to pray for her — to bend the knee 
Morning and night before that Deity, 
To whom pure lips and hearts without a stain, 

As thine are, Azim, never breathed in vain, — 

And pray that He may pardon her, — may take 

Compassion on her soul for thy dear sake, 

And nought remembering but her love to thee, 

Make her all thine, all His, eternally ! 

Go to those happy fields where first we twined 

Our youthful hearts together, — every wind 

That meets thee there, fresh from the well-known 
flowers, 

Will bring the sweetness of those innocent hours 

Back to thy soul, and thou mayst feel again 

For thy poor Zelica as thou didst then. 

So shall thy orisons, like dew that flies 

To heaven upon the morning's sunshine, rise 

With all love's earliest ardor to the skies ! 

And should they — but alas ! my senses fail — 

Oh, for one minute ! — should thy prayers prevail — 

If pardon'd souls may from that World of Bliss 




Reveal their joy to those they love in this, — 

I 'II come to thee — in some sweet dream — and tell — 

O Heaven — I die — dear love ! farewell, farewell." 

Time fleeted, — years on years had pass'd away, 
And few of those who on that mournful day 
Had stood, with pity in their eyes, to see 
The maiden's death and the youth's agony, 
Were living still, — when, by a rustic grave 
Beside the swift Amoo's transparent wave. 
An aged man, who had grown aged there 
By that lone grave, morning and night in prayer, 
For the last time knelt down ; and, though the shade 
Of death hung darkening over him, there play'd 
A gleam of rapture on his eye and cheek, 
That brighten'd even death, — like the last streak 
Of intense glory on th' horizon's brim. 
When night o'er all the rest hangs chill and dim. 
His soul had seen a vision, while he slept ; 
She for whose spirit he had pray'd and wept 
So many years, had come to him, all dress'd 
In angel smiles, and told him she was blest ! 
For this the old man breathed his thanks, and died — 
And there, upon the banks of that loved tide, 
He and his Zehca sleep side by side. 




( 104 ) 

The story of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan be- 
ing ended, they were now doomed to Iiear Fadladeen's 
criticisms upon it. A series of disappointments and 
accidents had occurred to this learned Chamberlain 
during the journey. In the first place, those couriers 
stationed, as in the reign of Shah Jehan, between 
Delhi and the western coast of India, to secure a con- 
stant supply of mangoes for the Royal Table, had, 
by some cruel irregularity, failed in their duty; and 
to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong was, of 
course, impossible. In the next place, the elephant 
laden with his fine antique porcelain had, in an un- 
usual fit of liveliness, shattered the whole set to 
pieces, — an irreparable loss, as many of the vessels 
were so exquisitely old as to have been used under 
the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many 
ages before the dynasty of Tang. His Koran too, 
supposed to be the identical copy between the leaves 
of which Mahomet's favorite pigeon used to nestle, 
had been mislaid by his Koran-bearer three whole 
days; not without much spiritual alarm to Fadla- 
deen, who, though professing to hold, with other loyal 
and orthodox Mussulmans, that salvation could only 
be found in the Koran, was strongly suspected of 
believing in his heart that it could only be found in 
his own particular copy of it. When to all these 
grievances is added the obstinacy of the cooks, in 
putting the pepper of Canara into his dishes instead 
of the cinnamon of Serendib, we may easily suppose 
that he came to the task of criticism with at least a 
sufficient degree of irritability for the purpose. 

" In order," said he, importantly swinging about 
his chaplet of pearls, " to convey with clearness my 



( los ) 

opinion of the story this young man has related, it is 
necessary to take a review of all the stories that have 
ever — " " My good Fadladeen ! " exclaimed the 
Princess, interrupting him, "we really do not de- 
serve that you should give yourself so much trouble. 
Your opinion of the poem we have just heard will, 
I have no doubt, be abundantly edifying, without 
any further waste of your valuable erudition." " If 
that be all," replied the critic, evidently mortified at 
not being allowed to show how much he knew about 
everything but the subject immediately before him, 
— " if that be all that is required, the matter is easily 
despatched." He then proceeded to analyze the 
poem, in that strain (so well known to the unfortu- 
nate bards of Delhi) whose censures were an infliction 
from which few recovered, and whose very praises 
were like the honey extracted from the bitter flowers 
of the aloe. The chief personages of the story were, 
if he rightly understood them, an ill-favored gentle- 
man, with a veil over his face ; a young lady, whose 
reason went and came according as it suited the 
poet's convenience to be sensible or otherwise ; and 
a youth in one of those hideous Bucharian bonnets, 
who took the aforesaid gentleman in a veil for a 
Divinity. " From such materials," said he, " what 
can be expected? After rivalling each other in long 
speeches and absurdities, through some thousands of 
lines as indigestible as the filberds of Berdaa, our 
friend in the veil jumps into a tub of aqua-fortis ; the 
young lady dies in a set speech, whose only recom- 
mendation is that it is her last; and the lover lives 
on to a good old age, for the laudable purpose of 
seeing her ghost, which he at last happily accom- 




plishes and expires. This, you will allow, is a fair 
summary of the story; and if Nasser, the Arabian 
merchant, told no better, our Holy Prophet (to whom 
be all honor and glory !) had no need to be jealous 
of his abilities for story-telling." 

With respect to the style, it was worthy of the 
matter ; it had not even those politic contrivances 
of structure which make up for the commonness of 
the thoughts by the peculiarity of 
the manner, nor that stately poeti- 
cal phraseology by which sentiments 
mean in themselves, like the black- 
smith's apron converted into a banner, are so easily 
gilt and embroidered into consequence. Then, as to 
the versification, it was, to say no worse of it, exe- 
crable : it had neither the copious flow of Ferdosi, 

the sweetness of Hafez, nor the 
sententious march of Sadi; but 
appeared to him, in the uneasy 
heaviness of its movements, to 
have been modelled upon the gait 
of a very tired dromedary. The 
licenses, too, in which it indulged 
were unpardonable ; for instance, 
this line, — and the poem abound- 
ed with such : — 

Like the faint exquisite music 01 a dream. 

"What critic that can count," said 
Fadladeen, " and has his full com- 
plement of fingers to count withal, 
would tolerate for an instant such 
syllabic superfluities? " — He here 
looked round and discovered that 




most of his audience were asleep ; vx-hile the glimmer- 
ing lamps seemed inch'ned to follow their example. 
It became necessary, therefore, ho\ve\-cr painful to 
himself, to put an end to his valuable animadversions 
for the present, and he accordingly concluded, \\-ith 
an air of dignified candor, thus : "Notwithstanding 
the observations which I have thought it m}^ dut}- to 
make, it is by no means my wish to discourage the 
young man ; — so far from it, indeed, that if he will 
but totally alter his style of writing and thinking, I 
have very little doubt that I shall be vastly pleased 
with him." 

Some days elapsed, after this harangue of the 
Great Chamberlain, before Lalla Rookh could ven- 
ture to ask for another story, The youth was still a 
welcome guest in the pavilion, — to one heart, per- 
haps, too dangerously welcome, — but all mention 
of poetry was, as if by common consent, avoided. 
Though none of the party had much respect for Fad- 
ladeen, yet his censures, thus magisterially delivered, 
evjdently made an impression on them all. The Poet 
himself, to whom criticism was quite a new' operation 
(being wholly unknown in that Paradise of the Indies, 
Cashmere), felt the shock as it is generally felt at 
first, till use has made it more tolerable 
to the patient; the ladies began to sus- 
pect that they ought not to be pleased, 
and seemed to conclude that there must 
have been much good sense 
in what Fadladeen said, 
from its having set them all 
so soundly to sleep; w;,hile 
the self-complacent Cham- 
berlain was left to triumph 
in the idea of having, for 





( io8 ) 

the hundred and fiftieth time in his Hfe, extinguished 
a Poet. Lalla Rookh alone — and Love knew why — 
persisted in being dehghted with all she had heard, 
and in resolving to hear more as speedily as possible. 
Her manner, however, of first returning to the sub- 
ject was unlucky. It was while they rested during 
the heat of noon near a fountain, on which some 
hand had rudely traced those well-known words from 
the Garden of Sadi, — " Many, like me, have viewed 
this fountain ; but they are gone, and their eyes are 
closed forever ! " — that she took occasion, from the 
melancholy beauty of this passage, to dwell upon the 
charms of poetry in general. " It is true," she said, 
" few poets can imitate that sublime bird which flies 
always in the air, and never touches the earth : it is 
only once in many ages a Genius appears, whose 
words, like those on the Written Mountain, last for- 
ever ; but still there are some, as delightful perhaps, 
though not so wonderful, who, if not stars over our 
head, are at least flowers along our path, and whose 
sweetness of the moment we ought gratefully to 
inhale, without calling upon them for a brightness 
and a durability beyond their nature. In short," 
continued she, blushing, as if conscious of being 
caught in an oration, " it is quite cruel that a poet 
cannot wander through his regions of enchantment, 
without having a critic forever, like the Old Man of 
the Sea, upon his back ! " Fadladeen, it was plain, 
took this last luckless allusion to himself, and would 
treasure it up in his mind as a whetstone for his next 
criticism. A sudden silence ensued ; and the Prin- 
cess, glancing a look at Feramorz, saw plainly she 
must wait for a more courageous moment. 



( I09 ) 

But the glories of Nature, and her wild, fragrant 
airs, playing freshly over the current of youthful 
spirits, will soon heal even deeper wounds than the 
dull Fadladeens of this world can inflict. In an 
evening or two after, they came to the small Valley 
of Gardens, which had been planted by order of the 
Emperor for his favorite sister Rochinara, during 
their progress to Cashmere, some years before; and 
never was there a more sparkling assemblage of 
sweets, since the Gulzar-e-Irem, or Rose-bower of 
Irem. Every precious flower was there to be found, 
that poetry or love or religion has ever consecrated ; 
from the dark hyacinth, to which Hafez compares 
his mistress's hair, to the Cdmalatd, by whose rosy 
blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented. As they 
sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and 
Lalla Rookh remarked that she could fancy it the 
abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they wor- 
ship in the temples of Kathay, or of one of those 
Peris, those beautiful creatures of the air, who live 
upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might 
make some amends for the Paradise they have lost, 
— the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while 
she spoke, to be one of the bright spiritual creatures 
she was describing, said hesitatingly that he remem- 
bered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no 
objection, he would venture to relate. " It is," said 
he, with an appealing look to Fadladeen, "in a hghter 
and humbler strain than the other ; " then, striking a 
few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he 
thus began : — 





i/^r.f^cuC.aXrt&'i},-'': 



One morn a Peri at the gate 
Of Eden stood, disconsolate ; 
And as she listened to the Springs 

Of Life within, like music flowing, 
And caught the light upon her wings 

Through the half-open portal glowing, 
She wept to think her recreant race 
Should e'er have lost that glorious place ! 

" How happy," exclaim'd this child of air, 
" Are the holy spirits who wander there, 

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall ! 
Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, 
And the stars themselves have flowers for me. 

One blossom of heaven out-blooms them all ! 
Though sunny the Lake of cool Cashmere, 
With its plane-tree isle reflected clear, 

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall ; 
Though bright are the waters of Sing-su-hay, 
And the golden floods, that thitherward 

stray, — 
Yet — oh, 't is only the blest can say 

How the waters of heaven outshine them all ! 




From world to luminous world, as far 

As the universe spreads its flaming wall ; 
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, 
And multiply each through endless years, 
One minute of heaven is worth them all ! " 

The glorious Angel who was keeping 
The gates of Light, beheld her weeping ; 
And as he nearer drew and listen'd 
To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten'd 
Within his eyelids, like the spray 

From Eden's fountain, when it lies 
On the blue flower which — Bramins say — 

Blooms nowhere but in Paradise ! 
" Nymph of a fair; but erring line ! " 
Gently he said, " one hope is thine, — 
'T is written in the Book of Fate, — 




\(jiM1i>r,(oX-:Si- 



( 112 ) 

The Peri yet may be forgiven 
Wlio brings to this Eternal Gate 

The Gift that is most dear to Heaven ! 
Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin ; — 
'T is sweet to let the Pardon'd in ! " 

Rapidly as comets run 

To th' embraces of the sun ; 

Fleeter than the starry brands 

Flung at night from angel hands 

At those dark and daring sprites 

Who would climb th' empyreal heights, — 

Down the blue vault the Peri flies. 

And, lighted earthward by a glance 
That just then broke from morning's eyes. 

Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse. 

But whither shall the Spirit go 

To find this gift for heaven? — "I know 

The wealth," she cries, " of every urn, 

In which unnumber'd rubies burn. 

Beneath the pillars of Chilminar ; 

I know where the Isles of Perfume are, 

Many a fathom down in the sea, 

To the south of sun-bright Araby ; 

I know too where the Genii hid 

The jewell'd cup of their king Jamshid, 

With life's elixir sparkling high ; — 

But gifts like these are not for the sky. 

Where was there ever a gem that shone 

Like the steps of AUa's wonderful Throne? 

And the Drops of Life — oh ! what would they be 

In the boundless Deep of Eternity? " 

While thus she mused, her pinions fann'd 
The air of that sweet Indian land, 



( "3 ) 

Whose air is balm ; whose ocean spreads 
O'er coral rocks and amber beds ; 
Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam 
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem ; 
Whose rivulets are like rich brides, 
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides ; 
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice 
Might be a Peri's Paradise ! 
But crimson now her rivers ran 

With human blood, — the smell of death 
Came reeking from their spicy bowers ; 
And man, the sacrifice of man, 

Mingled his taint with every breath 
Upwafted from the innocent flowers ! 
Land of the Sun ! what foot invades 
Thy pagods and thy pillar'd shades, — 
Thy cavern shrines, and idol stones, 
Thy monarchs and their thousand thrones? 
'T is he of Gazna ; — fierce in wrath 

He comes, and India's diadems 
Lie scatter'd in his ruinous path, — 

His bloodhounds he adorns with gems, 
Torn from the violated necks 

Of many a young and loved Sultana; 

Maidens within their pure Zenana, 

Priests in the very fane he slaughters, 
And chokes up with the glittering wrecks 

Of golden shrines the sacred waters ! 

Downward the Peri turns her gaze. 
And through the war-field's bloody haze 
Beholds a youthful warrior stand. 

Alone, beside his native river, — ■ 
The red blade broken in his hand 

And the last arrow in his quiver. 
" Live," said the conqueror, — " live to share 



The trophies and the crowns I bear ! " 
Silent that youthful warrior stood ; 
Silent he pointed to the -flood 
All crimson with his country's blood, 
Then sent his last remaining dart, 
For answer, to th' invader's heart. 

False flew the shaft, though pointed well ; 
The tyrant li\-ed, the hero fell ! — 
Yet mark'd the Peri where he laj^; 

And when the rush of war M^as past. 
Swiftly descending on a ray 

Of morning light, she caught the last — 
Last glorious drop his heart had shed, 
Before its free-born spirit fled ! 

" Be this," she cried, as she wing'd her flight, ■ 
" My welcome gift at the Gates of Light. 
Though foul are the drops that oft distil 

On the field of warfare, blood like this. 

For liberty shed, so holy is, 
It would not stain the purest rill 

That sparkles among the bowers of bliss ! 
Oh ! if there be, on this earthly sphere, 
A boon, an offering, Heaven holds dear, 
'T is the last libation Liberty draws 
From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her 
cause ! " 

'■' Sweet," said the Angel, as she gave 
The gift into his radiant hand, — 







■---?** 

-^ 





" Sweet is our welcome of the brave 

Who die thus for their native land ; 
But see, — alas ! — the crystal bar 
Of Eden moves not, — holier far 
Than e'en this drop the boon must be. 
That opes the Gates of Heaven for thee ! " 
Her first fond hope of Eden blighted, 

Now among Afric's Lunar Mountains, 
Far to the south, the Peri lighted ; 

And sleek'd her plumage at the fountains 
Of that Egyptian tide whose birth 
Is hidden from the sons of earth, 

Deep in those solitary woods 
Where oft the Genii of the Floods 
Dance round the cradle of their Nile, 
And hail the new-born Giant's smile ! 
Thence, over Egypt's palmy groves. 

Her grots, and sepulchres of kings, 
The exiled Spirit sighing roves ; 
And now hangs listening to the doves 
In warm Rosetta's vale, — now loves 
To watch the moonlight on the 
wings 
Of the white pelicans that break 
The azure calm of Moeris' Lake. 



'■^^ 




( ii6 ) 

'T was a fair scene, — a land more bright 

Never did mortal eye behold ! 
Who could have thought, that saw this night 

Those valleys and their fruits of gold 
Basking in heaven's serenest light; 
Those groups of lovely date-trees bending 

Languidly their leaf-crown'd heads, 
Like youthful maids, when sleep descending 

Warns them to their silken beds ; 
Those virgin lilies, all the night 

Bathing their beauties in the lake, 
That they may rise more fresh and bright. 

When their beloved sun 's awake ; 
Those ruin'd shrines and towers that seem 
The relics of a splendid dream, 

Amid whose fairy loneliness 
Nought but the lapwing's cry is heard. 
Nought seen but (when the shadows, flitting 
Fast from the moon, unsheathe its gleam) 
Some purple-wing'd sultana sitting 

Upon a column, motionless 
And glittering, like an idol bird ! — 
Who could have thought that there, e'en there, 
Amid those scenes so still and fair, 
The Demon of the Plague hath cast 
From his hot wing a deadlier blast, 
More mortal far than ever came 
From the red desert's sands of flame ! 
So quick, that everj^ living thing 
Of human shape, touch'd by his wing. 
Like plants where the simoom hath past, 
At once falls black and withering ! 



( "7 ) 

The sun went down on many a brow 

Which, full of bloom and freshness then, 
Is rankling in the pest-house now. 

And ne'er will feel that sun again ! 
And oh ! to see th' unburied heaps 
On which the lonely midnight sleeps — 
The very vultures turn away, 
And sicken at so foul a prey ! 
Only the fiercer hyena stalks 
Throughout the city's desolate walks 
At midnight, and his carnage plies — 

Woe to the half-dead wretch, who meets 
The glaring of those large blue eyes 

Amid the darkness of the streets ! 

" Poor race of Men ! " said the pitying Spirit, 

" Dearly ye pay for your primal fall, — 
Some flowerets of Eden ye still inherit, 

But the trail of the Serpent is over them all ! ' 
She wept, — the air grew pure and clear 

Around her, as the bright drops ran ; 
For there 's a magic in each tear. 

Such kindly spirits weep for man ! 

Just then, beneath some orange-trees. 
Whose fruit and blossoms in the breeze 
Were wantoning together, free, 
Like age at play with infancy, — 
Beneath that fresh and springing bower, 

Close by the lake, she heard the moan 
Of one who, at this silent hour, 

Had thither stolen to die alone: 
One who in life, where'er he moved, 

Drew after him the hearts of many ; 




T:^'-- 
•---^-^x 






1^ 



'l> 



^^ - _-: 

'et now, as though he ne'er were 

loved, 

ies here, unseen, unwept by any ! 

'I'gll'one to watch near him, — none 

to slake 

The fire that in his bosom Hes, 

\|\' ith e'en a sprinkle from that lake 

Which shines so cool before his 

eyes; 

No voice, well known through 

many a day, 

To speak the last, the parting 

word, 

\|\'hich, when all other sounds 

decay, 

Is still like distant music heard, 







KcnyonC^x. 1? 



%5^ 

4**" 







That tender farewell on the shore 
Of this rude world, when all is o'er, 
Which cheers the spirit, ere its bark 
Puts off into the unknown dark. 

Deserted youth ! one thought alone 

Shed joy around his soul in death, — 
That she whom he for years had known 
And loved, and might have call'd his own, 

Was safe from this foul midnight's breath; 
Safe in her father's princely halls, 
Where the cool airs from fountain falls. 
Freshly perfumed by many a brand 
Of the sweet wood from India's land. 
Were pure as she whose brow they fann'd. 

But see, — who yonder comes by stealth, 

This melancholy bower to seek, 
Like a young envoy, sent by Health, 

With rosy gifts upon her cheek? 
'Tis she, — far off, through moonlight dim, 

He knew his own betrothed bride, — 
She, who would rather die with him 

Than live to gain the world beside ! — 
Her arms are round her lover now. 

His livid cheeks to hers she presses. 
And dips, to bind his burning brow. 

In the cool lake her loosen'd tresses. 
Ah ! once how little did he think 




( 120 ) 

An hour would come when he should shrink 
With horror from that dear embrace, 

Those gentle arms, that were to him 
Holy as is the cradling place 

Of Eden's infant cherubim ! 
And now he yields — now turns away, 
Shuddering as if the venom lay 
All in those proffer'd lips alone, — 
Those lips that, then so fearless grown, 
Never until that instant came 
Near his unask'd or without shame. 
" Oh ! let me only breathe the air, 

The blessed air, that 's breathed by thee, 
And, whether on its wings it bear 

Healing or death, 't is sweet to me ! 
There, — drink my tears, while yet they fall, - 

Would that my bosom's blood were balm, 
And, well thou know'st, I 'd shed it all 

To give thy brow one minute's calm. 
Nay, turn not from me that dear face — 

Am I not thine, — thy own loved bride, — 
The one, the chosen one, whose place 

In life or death is by thy side ! 
Think'st thou that she, whose only light 

In this dim world from thee hath shone, 
Could bear the long, the cheerless night 

That must be hers when thou art gone? 
That I can live, and let thee go, 
Who art my life itself? No, no — • 
When the stem dies, the leaf that grew 
Out of its heart must perish too ! 
Then turn to me, my own love, turn, 
Before like thee I fade and burn ; 



( 121 ) 

Cling to these yet cool lips, and share 
The last pure life that lingers there ! " 
She fails — she sinks — as dies the lamp 
In charnel airs or cavern damp, 
So quickly do his baleful sighs 
Quench all the sweet light of her eyes ! 
One struggle — and his pain is past, — 

Her lover is no longer living ! 
One kiss the maiden gives, — one last. 

Long kiss, which she expires in giving ! 

"Sleep," said the Peri, as softly she stole 
The farewell sigh of that vanishing soul, 
As true as e'er warm'd a woman's breast, — 
" Sleep on, in visions of odor rest. 
In balmier airs than ever yet stirr'd 
Th' enchanted pile of that holy bird 
Who sings at the last his own death-lay. 
And in music and perfume dies away ! " 

Thus saying, from her lips she spread 

Unearthly breathings through the place. 
And shook her sparkling wreath, and shed 

Such lustre o'er each paly face. 
That like two lovely saints they seem'd 

Upon the eve of doomsday taken 
From their dim graves, in odor sleeping; 
While that benevolent Peri beam'd 
Like their good angel, calmly keeping 

Watch o'er them, till their souls would waken ! 
But morn is blushing in the sky; 

Again the Peri soars above, 



■ Kenyon ■'" 




Bearing to heaven that precious sigh 

Of pure, self-sacrificing love. 
High throbb'd her heart, with hope elate, 

The Elysian palm she soon shall win, 
For the bright Spirit at the gate 

Smiled as she gave that offering in ; 
And she already hears the trees 

Of Eden, with their crystal bells 
Ringing in that ambrosial breeze 

That from the Throne of Alia swells ; 
And she can see the starry bowls 

That lie around that lucid lake 
Upon whose banks admitted souls 

Their first sweet draught of glory take ! 
But ah ! even Peris' hopes are vain. 
Again the Fates forbade, again 
The immortal barrier closed : " Not yet," 
The Angel said as, with regret. 
He shut from her that glimpse of glory. 
" True was the maiden, and her story, 
\\Vitten in light o'er Alla's head, 
By seraph eyes shall long be read ; 
But, Peri, see, — the crystal bar 
Of Eden moves not, — holier far 
Than even this sigh the boon must be 
That opes the Gates of Heaven for thee." 



Now, upon Syria's land of roses 
Softly the light of eve reposes. 
And, like a glory, the broad sun 
Hangs over sainted Lebanon ; 




|<ENVoN<5X-g'l- 



( 124 ) 

Of ruin'd shrines, busy and bright, 

As tliey were all alive with light; 

And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks 

Of pigeons, settling on the rocks, 

With their rich restless wings, that gleam 

Variously in the crimson beam 

Of the warm west, — as if inlaid 

With brilliants from the mine, or made 

Of tearless rainbows, such as span 

Th' unclouded skies of Peristan ! 

And then the mingling sounds that come, 

Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum 

Of the wild bees of Palestine 

Banqueting through the flowery vales, — 
And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, 

And woods, so full of nightingales ! 

But nought can charm the luckless Peri ; 
Her soul is sad, — her wings are weary : 
Joyless she sees the sun look down 
On that great Temple, once his own, 
Whose lonely columns stand sublime. 

Flinging their shadows from on high. 
Like dials, which the wizard, Time, 

Had raised to count his ages by ! 

Yet haply there may lie conceal'd 
Beneath those chambers of the sun, 

Some amulet of gems, anneal'd 

In upper fires, some tablet seal'd 
With the great name of Solomon, 

Which, spell'd by her illumined eyes, 

May teach her where, beneath the moon. 
In earth or ocean, lies the boon. 



( I2S ) 

The charm, that can restore so soon 
An erring Spirit to the skies ! 

Cheer'd by this hope, she bends her thither : 

Still laughs the radiant eye of heaven. 

Nor have the golden bowers of even 
In the rich west begun to wither. 
When, o'er the vale of Balbec winging 

Slowly, she sees a child at play. 
Among the rosy wild-flowers singing. 

As rosy and as wild as they; 
Chasing, with eager hands and eyes. 
The beautiful blue damsel-flies. 
That flutter'd round the jasmine stems. 
Like winged flowers or flying gems ; — 
And near the boy, who, tired with play, 
Now nestling 'mid the roses lay. 
She saw a wearied man dismount 

From his hot steed, and on the brink 
Of a small imaret's rustic fount 

Impatient fling him down to drink. 
Then swift his haggard brow he turn'd 

To the fair child, who fearless sat. 
Though never yet hath daybeam burn'd 

Upon a brow more fierce than that, — 
Sullenly fierce, — a mixture dire. 
Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire; 
In which the Peri's eye could read 
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed, — 
The ruin'd maid, the shrine profaned, 
Oaths broken, and the threshold stain'd 
With blood of guests ! — there written, all, 
Black as the damning drops that fall 
From the denouncing Angel's pen. 




Ere Mercy weeps them out again ! 
Yet tranquil now that man of crime 
(As if the balmy evening time 
Soften'd his spirit) look'd and lay, 
Watching the rosy infant's play ; 
Though still, whene'er his eye by chance 
Fell on the boy's, its lurid glance 

Met that unclouded, joyous gaze. 
As torches that have burnt all night 
Through some impure and godless rite, 

Encounter morning's glorious rays. 

But hark ! the vesper call to prayer, 

As slow the orb of daylight sets, 
Is rising sweetly on the air. 

From Syria's thousand minarets ! 
The boy has started from the bed 
Of flowers, where he had laid his head, 
And down upon the fragrant sod 

Kneels, with his forehead to the south, 
Lisping th' eternal name of God 

From purity's own cherub mouth. 
And looking, while his hands and eyes 
Are lifted to the glowing skies, 
Like a stray babe of Paradise, 
Just lighted on that flowery plain. 




And seeking for its home again ! 

Oh, 'twas a sight — that heaven — that child — - 

A scene, which might have well beguiled 

E'en haughty Eblis of a sigh 

For glories lost and peace gone by ! 

And how felt he, the wretched Man 

Reclining there, while memory ran 

O'er many a year of guilt and strife, 

Flew o'er the dark flood of his life. 

Nor found one sunny resting-place, 

Nor brought him back one branch of grace? 

" There was a time," he said, in mild. 

Heart-humbled tones, " thou blessed child ! 

When, young and haply pure as thou, 

I look'd and pray'd like thee; but now — " 

He hung his head, — each nobler aim 

And hope and feeling, which had slept 
From boyhood's hour, that instant came 

Fresh o'er him, and he wept — he wept ! 
Blest tears of soul-felt penitence ! 

In whose benign, redeeming flow 
Is felt the first, the only sense 

Of guiltless joy that guilt can know. 

" There's a drop," said the Peri, "that down from the moon 

Falls through the withering airs of June 

Upon Egypt's land, of so healing a power, 

So balmy a virtue, that e'en in the hour 

That drop descends, contagion dies. 

And health reanimates earth and skies ! — 

Oh ! is it not thus, thou man of sin. 

The precious tears of repentance fall? 
Though foul thy fiery plagues within, 

One heavenly drop hath dispell'd them all ! " 



( 128 ) 

And now — behold him kneeling there 
By the child's side, in humble prayer, 
While the same sunbeam shines upon 
The guilty and the guiltless one, 
And hymns of joy proclaim through heaven 
The triumph of a soul forgiven ! 

'T was when the golden orb had set, 
While on their knees they linger'd yet, 
There fell a light, more lovely far 
Than ever came from sun or star. 
Upon the tear that, warm and meek, 
Dew'd that repentant sinner's cheek: 
To mortal eye this light might seem 
A northern flash or meteor beam ; 
But well th' enraptured Peri knew 
'Twas a bright smile the Angel threw 
From heaven's gate, to hail that tear 
Her harbinger of glory near ! 

" Joy, joy forever ! my task is done, — 
The Gates are pass'd, and heaven is won ! 
Oh ! am I not happy? I am, I am — 

To thee, sweet Eden ! how dark and sad 
Are the diamond turrets of Shadukiam, 

And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad ! 
Farewell, ye odors of earth, that die. 
Passing away like a lover's sigh ! 
My feast is now of the tooba tree. 
Whose scent is the breath of eternity 1 

" Farewell, ye vanishing flowers, that shone 
In my fairy wreath, so bright and brief, — 
Oh ! what are the brightest that e'er have blown, 
To the lote-tree, springing by Alla's Throne, 

Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf! 
Joy, joy forever ! — my task is done, — 
The Gates are pass'd, and heaven is won ! " 



( 129 ) 

" And this," said the Great Chamberlain, " is 
poetry ! this flimsy manufacture of the brain, which, 
in comparison with the lofty and durable monuments 
of genius, is as the gold filigree-work of Zamara 
beside the eternal architecture of Egypt." After this 
gorgeous sentence, which, with a few more of the 
same kind, Fadladeen kept by him for rare and im- 
portant occasions, he proceeded to the anatomy of 
the short poem just recited. The lax and easy kind 
of metre in which it was written ought to be de- 
nounced, he said, as one of the leading causes of the 
alarming growth of poetry in our times. If some 
check were not given to this lawless facility, we 
should soon be overrun by a race of bards as nu- 
merous and as shallow as the hundred and twenty 
thousand streams of Basra. They who succeeded in 
this style deserved chastisement for their very suc- 
cess;^ as warriors have been punished, even after 
gaining a victory, because they had taken the liberty 
of gaining it in an irregular or unestablished manner. 
What, then, was to be said to those who failed? to 
those who presumed, as in the present lamentable 
instance, to imitate the license and ease of the bolder 
sons of song, without any of that grace or vigor which 
gave a dignity even to negligence ; who, like them, 
flung the jereed carelessly, but not, like them, to the 
mark; "and who," said he, raising his voice to ex- 
cite a proper degree of wakefulness in his hearers, 
" contrive to appear heavy and constrained in the 
midst of all the latitude they have allowed them- 
selves, like one of those young pagans that dance 
before the Princess, who has the ingenuity to move 
as if her limbs were fettered in a pair of the lightest 
and loosest drawers of Masulipatam ! " 




It was but little suitable, he continued, to the grave 
march of criticism to follow this fantastical Peri, of 
whom they had just heard, through all her flights 
and adventures between earth and heaven, but he 
could not help adverting to the puerile conceitedness 
of the Three Gifts which she is supposed to carry to 
the skies, — a drop of blood, forsooth, a sigh, and a 
tear ! How the first of these articles was delivered 
into the Angel's " radiant hand " he professed himself 
at a loss to discover ; and as to the safe carriage of 
the sigh and the tear, such Peris and such poets were 
beings by far too incomprehensible for him even to 
guess how they managed such matters. " But, in 
short," said he, " it is a waste of time and patience 
to dwell longer upon, a thing so incurably frivolous, — puny even 
among its own puny race, and such as only the Banyan Hospital 
for Sick Insects should undertake." 

In vain did Lalla Rookh try to soften this inexorable critic; in 
vain did she resort to her most eloquent commonplaces, — remind- 
ing him that poets were a timid and sensitive race, whose sweet- 
ness was not to be drawn forth, like that of the fragrant grass near 
the Ganges, by crushing and trampling upon them; that severity 
often destroyed every chance of the perfection which it demanded; 




and that, after all, perfect^ 
Mountain of the Talisman, — no one had 
ever yet reached its summit. Neither 
these gentle axioms, nor the still gentler 
looks with which they were inculcated, 
could lower for one instant the elevation 
of Fadladeen's eyebrows, or charm him 
into anything like encouragement, or even 
toleration, of her Poet. Toleration, in- 
deed, was not among the weaknesses of 
Fadladeen: he carried the same spirit 
into matters of poetry and of religion, 
and, though little versed in the beauties 
! or sublimities of either, was a perfect 
master of the art of persecution in both. 
His zeal, too, was the same in either pur- 
suit, whether the game before him was 
pagans or poetasters, — worshippers of 
cows, or writers of epics. 



I' 



( 132 ) 

They had now arrived at the splendid city of La- 
hore, whose mausoleums and shrines, magnificent 
and numberless, where Death seemed to share equal 
honors with Heaven, would have powerfully affected 
the heart and imagination of Lalla Rookh, if feelings 
more of this earth had not taken entire possession 
of her already. She was here met by messengers, 
despatched from Cashmere, who informed her tfeat 
the King had arrived in the valley, and was himself 
superintending the sumptuous preparations that were 
making in the saloons of the Shalimar for her recep- 
tion. The chill she felt on receiving this intelligence 
- — which to a bride whose heart was free and light 
would have brought only images of affection and 
pleasure — convinced her that her peace was gone 
forever, and that she was in love, irretrievably in 
love, with young Feraraorz. The veil which this 
passion wears at first, had fallen off, and to know 
that she loved was now as painful as to love withoiit 
knowing it had been delicious. Feramorz, too, — 
what misery would be his, if the sweet hours of inter- 
course so imprudently allowed them should have 
stolen into his heart the same fatal fascination as into 
hers ; if, notwithstanding her rank and the modest 
homage he always paid to it, even he should have 
yielded to the influence of those long and happy 
interviews, where music, poetry, the delightful scenes 
of nature, all tended to bring their hearts close 
together, and to waken by every means that too 
ready passion, which often, like the young of the 
desert-bird, is warmed into life by the eyes alone ! 
She saw but one way to preserve herself from being 
culpable as well as unhappy ; and this, however pain- 



( 133 ) 

ful, she was resolved to adopt. Feramorz must no 
more be admitted to her presence. To have strayed 
so far into the dangerous labyrinth was wrong; but 
to linger in it while the clew was yet in her hand 
would be criminal. Though the heart she had to 
offer to the King of Bucharia might be cold and 
broken, it should at least be pure; and she must 
only try to forget the short vision of happiness she 
had enjoyed, — like that Arabian shepherd who, 
in wandering into the wilderness, caught a glimpse 
of the Gardens of Irim, and then lost them again 
forever ! 

The arrival of the young Bride at Lahore was cele- 
brated in the most enthusiastic manner. The rajas 
and omras in her train, who had kept at a certain 
distance during the journey, and never encamped 
nearer to the Princess than was strictly necessary 
for her safeguard, here rode in splendid cavalcade 
through the city, and distributed the most costly 
presents to the crowd. Engines were erected in all 
the squares, which cast forth showers of confectionery 
among the people ; while the artisans, in chariots 
adorned with tinsel and flying streamers, exhibited 
the badges of their respective trades through the 
streets. Such brilliant displays of life and pageantry 
among the palaces and domes and gilded minarets of 
Lahore made the city altogether like a place of en- 
chantment ; particularly on the day when Lalla Rookh 
set out again upon her journey, when she was accom- 
panied to the gate by all the fairest and richest of the 
nobility, and rode along between ranks of beautiful 
boys and girls, who waved plates of gold and silver 
flowers over their heads as they went, and then threw 
them to be gathered by the populace. 




For many days after 
their departure from 
Lahore, a considerable 
degree of gloom hung 
over the whole party. 
Lalla Rookh, who had 
intended to make ill- 
ness her excuse for not 
admitting the young 
minstrel as usual to the 
pavilion, soon found 
that to feign indispo- 
sition was unnecessary; Fadladeen felt the loss of 
fthe good road they had hitherto travelled, and was 
very near cursing Jehan-Guire (of blessed memory!) 
for not having continued his delectable alley of trees, 
at least as far as the mountains of Cashmere ; while 
the ladies, who had nothing now to do all day but to 
be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to Fadla- 
deen, seemed heartily weary of the life they led, and, 
in spite of all the Great Chamberlain's criticisms, 
were tasteless enough to wish for the Poet again. 
One evening, as they were proceeding to their place 
of rest for the night, the Princess, who, for the freer 
enjoyment of the air, had mounted her favorite Ara- 
bian palfrey, in passing by a small grove heard the 
notes of a lute from within its leaves, and a voice, 
which she but too well knew, singing the following 
words : — 



Tell me not of joys above, 

If that world can give no bliss, 

Truer, happier than the love 

Which enslaves our souls in this ! 



Who that feels what love is here - 
All its falsehood, all its pain — 

Would, for even elysium's sphere, 
Risk the fatal dream again? 



Tell me not of Houris' eyes ; — 
Far from me their dangerous glow. 

If those looks that light the skies 
Wound like some that burn below ! 



Who, that midst a desert's heat 
Sees the waters fade away, 

Would not rather die than meet 
Streams again as false as they? 



The tone of melancholy defiance in which these 
words ^yere uttered went to Lalla Rookh's heart; 
and as she reluctantly rode on, she could not help 
feeling it as a sad but sweet certainty that Feramorz 
was to the full as enamoured and miserable as 
herself. 

The place where they encamped that evening was 
the first delightful spot they had come to since they 
left Lahore. On one side of them was a grove full 
of small Hindoo temples, and planted with the most 
graceful trees of the East ; where the tamarind, the 
cassia, and the silken plantains of Ceylon were min- 
gled in rich contrast with the high fan-like foliage of 
the Palmyra, — that favorite tree of the luxurious 
bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire- 
flies. In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion 
stood there was a tank surrounded by small mango- 
trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated mul- 
titudes of the beautiful red lotus, while at a distance 
stood the ruins of a strange and awful-looking tower, 




( 136 ) 

which seemed old enough to have been the tem- 
ple of some religion no longer known, and which 
spoke the voice of desolation in the midst of all that 
bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the 
wonder and conjectures of all. Lalla Rookh guessed 
in vain; and the all-pretending Fadladeen, who had 
never till this journey been beyond the precincts of 
Delhi, was proceeding most learnedly to show that 
he knew nothing whatever about the matter, when 
one of the ladies suggested that perhaps Feramorz 
could satisfy their curiosity. They were now ap- 
proaching his native mountains, and this tower might 
be a relic of some of those dark superstitions which 
had prevailed in that country before the light of Islam 
dawned upon it. The Chamberlain, who usually pre- 
ferred his own ignorance to the best knowledge that 
any one else could give him, was by no means pleased 
with this officious reference; and the Princess, too, 
was about to interpose a faint word of objection : but, 
before either of them could speak, a slave was de- 
spatched for Feramorz, who in a very few minutes 
appeared before them, looking so pale and unhappy 
in Lalla Rookh's eyes, that she already repented of 
her cruelty in having so long excluded him. 

That venerable tower, he told them, was the re- 
mains of an ancient Fire-Temple, built by those 
Ghebers or Persians of the old religion, who, many 
hundred years since, had fled hither from their Arab 
conquerors, preferring liberty and their altars in a 
foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or perse- 
cution in their own. It was impossible, he added, 
not to feel interested in the many glorious but un- 
successful struggles which had been made by these 
original natives of Persia to cast off the yoke of their 



( 137 ) 

bigoted conquerors. Like their own fire in the Burn- 
ing Field at Bakou, when suppressed in one place, 
they had but broken out with fresh flame in another ; 
and, as a native of Cashmere, of that fair and Holy 
Valley, which had in the same manner become the 
prey of strangers, and seen her ancient shrines and 
native princes swept away before the march of her 
intolerant invaders, he felt a sympathy, he owned, with 
the sufferings of the persecuted Ghebers, which every 
monument like this before them but tended more 
powerfully to awaken. 

It was the first time that Feramorz had ever ven- 
tured upon so much prose before Fadladeen, and it 
may easily be conceived what effect such prose as 
this must have produced upon that most orthodox 
and most pagan-hating personage. He sat for some 
minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted 
conquerors ! — sympathy with Fire-worshippers ! " — 
while Feramorz, happy to take advantage of this 
almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, pro- 
ceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, 
connected with the events of one of those brave 
struggles of the Fire-worshippers of Persia against 
their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too 
far advanced, he should have much pleasure in being 
allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible 
for Lalla Rookh to refuse; he had never before 
looked half so animated, and when he spoke of the 
Holy Valley his eyes had sparkled, she thought, like 
the talismanic characters on the cimeter of Solomon. 
Her consent was therefore most readily granted ; and 
while Fadladeen sat in unspeakable dismay, expect- 
ing treason and abomination in every line, the poet 
thus began his story of the Fire-worshippers: — 




THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS. 



'TiS moonlight over Oman's Sea; 

Her banks of pearl and palmy isles 
Bask in the night-beam beauteously, 

And her blue waters sleep in smiles. 
'T is moonlight in Harmozia's walls, 
And through her Emir's porphyry halls, 
Where, some hours since, was heard the swell 
Of trumpet and the clash of zel, 
Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell, — 



The peaceful sun, whom better suits 

The music of the bulbul's nest, 
Or the Hght touch of lovers' lutes, 

To sing him to his golden rest ! 
All hush'd — there's not a breeze in motion ; 
The shore is silent as the ocean. 
If zephyrs come, so light they come, 

Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven ; — 
The wind-tower on the Emir's dome 

Can hardly win a breath from heaven. 



Even he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps 
Calm, while a nation round him weeps; 
While curses load the air he breathes, 
And falchions from unnumber'd sheaths 
Are starting to avenge the shame 
His race hath brought on Iran's name. 
Hard, heartless Chief, unmoved alike 
'Mid eyes that weep, and swords that strike ; ■ 
One of that saintly, murderous brood, 

To carnage and the Koran given, 
Who think through unbelievers' blood 

Lies their directest path to heaven, — 
One who will pause and kneel unshod. 




.t 



( I40 ) 

In the warm blood his hand hath pour'd, 
To mutter o'er some text of God 

Engraven on his reeking sword; 
Nay, who can coolly note the line, 
The letter of those words divine, 
To which his blade, with searching art, 
Had sunk into its victim's heart ! 

Just Alia ! what must be thy look, 

When such a wretch before Thee stands 
Unblushing, with thy Sacred Book, — 

Turning the leaves with blood-stain'd hands, 
And wresting from its page sublime 
His creed of lust and hate and crime? 
Even as those bees of Trebizond, 

Which from the sunniest flowers that glad 
With their pure smile the gardens round. 

Draw venom forth that drives men mad ! • 

Never did fierce Arabia send 

A satrap forth more direly great ; 

Never was Iran doom'd to bend 
Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight. 

Her throne had fallen ; her pride was crush'd ; 

Her sons were willing slaves, nor blush'd, 

In their own land, — no more their own, — 

To crouch beneath a stranger's throne. 

Her towers, where Mithra once had burn'd, 



( HI ) 

To Moslem shrines — oh, shame ! — were turn'd; 

Where slaves, converted by the sword, 

Their mean, apostate worship pour'd, 

And cursed the faith their sires adored. 

Yet has she hearts, 'mid all this ill, 

O'er all this wreck, high buoyant still 

With hope and vengeance; hearts that yet — 

Like gems, in darkness issuing rays 
They 've treasured from the sun that 's set — 

Beam all the light of long-lost days ! 
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow 

To second all such hearts can dare ; 
As he shall know, well, dearly know. 

Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there, 
Tranquil as if his spirit lay 
Becalm'd in Heaven's approving ray ! 
Sleep on, — for purer eyes than thine 
Those waves are hush'd, those planets shine. 
Sleep on, — and be thy rest unmoved 

By the white moonbeam's dazzling power j 
None but the loving and the loved 

Should be awake at this sweet hour. 

And see — where, high above those rocks 
That o'er the deep their shadows fling, 

Yon turret stands, — where ebon locks. 
As glossy as a heron's wing 
Upon the turban of a king, 




Hang from the 
lattice, long 
and wild, — 
' T is she, that 
Emir's blooming 
child, 
All truth and tender- 
ness and grace. 
Though born of such 
ungentle race, — 

An image of Youth's 

fairy Fountain 
Springing in a 
desolate moun- 
tain ! 

Oh, what a pure and 
sacred thing 
i- Is beauty, curtain'd from 
the sight 
Of the gross world, illumining 
One only mansion with her light ! 
Unseen by man's disturbing eye, — 

The flower that blooms beneath the sea, 
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie 
Hid in more chaste obscurity ! 
So, Hinda, have thy face and mind. 
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrined. 
And oh, what transport for a lover 

To lift the veil that shades them o'er ! 
Like those who all at once discover 
In the lone deep some fairy shore, 
Where mortal never trod before, 
And sleep and wake in scented airs 
No lip had ever breathed but theirs ! 




Beautiful are the maids that glide, 

On summer eves, through Yemen's dales,^ 
And bright the glancing looks they hide ^ 
Behind their litters' roseate veils ; 

And brides, as delicate and fair 

As the white jasmine flowers they wear, 

Hath Yemen in her blissful clime, 

Who luU'd in cool kiosk or bower 
Before their mirrors count the time, 

And grow still lovelier every hour. 
But never yet hath bride or maid 
In Araby's gay harams smiled, 
Whose boasted brightness would not fade 
Before Al Hassan's blooming child. 



Light as the angel shapes that bless 
An infant's dream, yet not the less 
Rich in all woman's loveliness ; 
With eyes so pure, that from their ray 
Dark vice would turn abash'd away, 
Blinded like serpents, when they gaze 
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze ! 
Yet, fill'd with all youth's sweet desires, 
Mingling the meek and vestal fires 
Of other worlds with all the bliss. 
The fond, weak tenderness of this ! 



( 144 ) 

A soul, too, more than half divine, 

Where, through some shades of earthly feeling, 
Religion's soften'd glories shine, 

Like light through summer foliage stealing, 
Shedding a glow of such mild hue, 
So warm, and yet so shadowy too, 
As makes the very darkness there 
More beautiful than light elsewhere ! 

Such is the maid who at this hour 

Hath risen from her restless sleep. 
And sits alone in that high bower, 

Watching the still and shining deep. 
Ah ! 't was not thus — with tearful eyes 

And beating heart — she used to gaze 
On the magnificent earth and skies. 

In her own land, in happier days. 
Why looks she now so anxious down 
Among those rocks, whose rugged frown 

Blackens the mirror of the deep? 
Whom waits she all this lonely night? 

Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep. 
For man to scale that turret's height ! 

So deem'd at least her thoughtful sire. 

When high, to catch the cool night air. 
After the daybeam's withering fire. 

He built her bower of freshness there. 
And had it deck'd with costliest skill. 

And fondly thought it safe as fair ; — 
Think, reverend dreamer ! think so still. 

Nor wake to learn what love can dare, — 
Love, all-defying Love, who sees 
No charm in trophies won with ease ; 
Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss 
Are pluck'd on danger's precipice ! 



( 145 ) 

Bolder than they who dare not dive 

For pearls but when the sea 's at rest, 
Love, in the tempest most alive, 

Hath ever held that pearl the best 
He finds beneath the stormiest water ! 
Yes, — Araby's unrivall'd daughter, 
Though high that tower, that rock-way rude. 

There 's one who, but to kiss thy cheek, 
Would climb th' untrodden solitude 

Of Ararat's tremendous peak, 
And think its steeps, though dark and dread, 
Heaven's pathways, if to thee they led ! 
E'en now thou seest the flashing spray. 
That lights his oar's impatient way; 
E'en now thou hear'st the sudden shock 
Of his swift bark against the rock. 
And stretchest down thy arms of snow, 
As if to lift him from below ! 
Like her to whom, at dead of night. 
The bridegroom, with his locks of light, 
Came, in the flush of love and pride. 
And scaled the terrace of his bride ; 
When, as she saw him rashly spring. 
And midway up in danger cling. 
She flung him down her long black hair. 
Exclaiming, breathless, "There, love, there ! " 
And scarce did manlier nerve uphold 

The hero Zal in that fond hour. 
Than wings the youth who, fleet and bold. 

Now climbs the rocks to Hinda's bower. 
See — light as up their granite steeps 

The rock-goats of Arabia clamber. 
Fearless from crag to crag he leaps. 

And now is in the maiden's chamber. 

She loves, — but knows not whom she loves, 
Nor what his race, nor whence he came ; — 



Like one who meets, in Indian groves, 

Some beauteous bird, without a name, 
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze, 
From isles in th' undiscover'd seas, 
To show his plumage for a day 
To wondering eyes, and wing away ! 
Will he thus fly, — her nameless lover? 

Alia forbid ! 't was by a moon 
As fair as this, while singing over 

Some ditty to her soft Kanoon, 
Alone at this same witching hour. 

She first beheld his radiant eyes 
Gleam through the lattice of the bower. 

Where nightly now they mix their sighs ; 
And thought some spirit of the air 
(For what could waft a mortal there?) 
Was pausing on his moonlight way 
To listen to her lonely lay ! 




This fancy ne'er hath left her mind ; 

And though, when terror's swoon had past. 
She saw a youth, of mortal kind. 

Before her in obeisance cast, 
Yet often since, when he hath spoken 
Strange, awful words, and gleams have broken 
From his dark eyes, too bright to bear. 

Oh ! she hath fear'd her soul was given 
To some unhallow'd child of air. 

Some erring spirit cast from heaven, 
Like those angelic youths of old. 
Who burn'd for maids of mortal mould, 
Bewilder'd left the glorious skies, • 

And lost their heaven for woman's eyes ! 
Fond girl, nor fiend nor angel he, 
Who woos thy young simplicity; 
But one of earth's impassion'd sons. 




As warm in love, as fierce in ire,- 
As the best heart whose current runs ~.' 
Full of the Day-god's living fire ! 

But quench'd to-night that ardor seems, 

And pale his cheek, and sunk his brow ; - 
Never before, but in her dreams, 

Had she beheld him pale as now; 
And those were dreams of troubled sleep, 
From which 'twas joy to wake and weep, — 
Visions, that will not be forgot, 

But sadden every waking scene. 
Like warning ghosts, that leave the spot 

All wither'd where they once have been ! 



" How sweetly," said the trembling maid, 
Of her own gentle voice afraid, 



( 148 ) 

So long had they in silence stood, 

Looking upon that tranquil flood, — 

" How sweetly does the moonbeam smile 

To-night upon yon leafy isle ! 

Oft, in my fancy's wanderings, 

I 've wish'd that little isle had wings, 

And we, within its fairy bowers, 

Were wafted off to seas unknown. 
Where not a pulse should beat but ours. 

And we might live, love, die alone ! 
Far from the cruel and the cold, — 

Where the bright eyes of angels only 
Should come around us, to behold 
A paradise so pure and lonely ! 
Would this be world enough for thee? " 
Playful she turn'd, that he might see 

The passing smile her cheek put on ! 
But when she mark'd how mournfully 

His eyes met hers, that smile was gone ; 
And, bursting into heartfelt tears, 
"Yes, yes," she cried, " my hourly fears, 
My dreams, have boded all too right — 
We part — forever part — to-night ! — 
I knew, I knew it could not last — 
'T was bright, 't was heavenly, but 't is past ! 
Oh ! ever thus, from childhood's hour, 

I 've seen my fondest hopes decay; 
I never loved a tree or flower. 

But 't was the first to fade away. 
I never nursed a dear gazelle, 

To glad me with its soft black eye. 
But when it came to know me well. 
And love me, it was sure to die ! 
Now too — the joy most like divine 
Of all I ever dreamt or knew. 



( H9 ) 

To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine, — 

Oh, misery ! must I lose that too ? 
Yet go — on peril's brink we meet; — 

Those frightful rocks — that treacherous sea — 
No, never come again — though sweet, 

Though heaven, it may be death to thee. 
Farewell — and blessings on thy way. 

Where'er thou go'st, beloved stranger ! 
Better to sit and watch that ray, 
And think thee safe, though far away, 

Than have thee near me, and in danger ! " 

" Danger ! oh, tempt me not to boast," 
The youth exclaim'd, — " thou little know'st 
What he can brave who, born and nurst 
In Danger's paths, has dared her worst ! 
Upon whose ear the signal-word 

Of strife and death is hourly breaking ; 
Who sleeps with head upon the sword 

His fever'd hand must grasp in waking ! 
Danger ! — " 

"Say on — thou fear'st not then. 
And we may meet — oft meet again? " 

" Oh ! look not so, — beneath the skies 

I now fear nothing but those eyes. 

If aught on earth could charm or force 

My spirit from its destined course. 

If aught could make this soul forget 

The bond to which its seal is set, 

'T would be those eyes ; — they, only they. 

Could melt that sacred seal away ! 

But no — 'tis fix'd — my awful doom 

Is fix'd — on this side of the tomb 

We meet no more — why, why did Heaven 




Mingle two souls that earth has riven, 

Has rent asunder, wide as ours? 

O Arab maid ! as soon the powers 

Of light and darkness may combine, 
As I be link'd with thee or thine ! 
Thy Father — " 



" Holy Alia, save 

His gray head from that lightning glance ! 
Thou know'st him not, — he loves the brave; 

Nor lives there under heaven's expanse 
One who would prize, would worship thee, 
And thy bold spirit, more than he. 
Oft when, in childhood, I have play'd 

With the bright falchion by his side, 
I 've heard him swear his lisping maid 

In time should be a warrior's bride ; 
And still, whene'er, at haram hours, 
I take him cool sherbets and iiowers. 
He tells me, when in playful mood, 

A hero shall my bridegroom be, 
Since maids are best in battle woo'd. 




And won with shouts of victor) 
Nay, turn not from me, — thou alone 
Art form'd to make both hearts thy own. 
Go — join his sacred ranks — thou know'st 

Th' unholy strife these Persians wage : — 
Good Heaven, that frown ! — even now thou glow'st 

With more than mortal warrior's rage. 
Haste to the camp by morning's light, 
And, when that sword is raised in fight, 
Oh, still remember. Love and I 
Beneath its shadow trembhng lie ! 
One victory o'er those Slaves of Fire, 
Those impious Ghebers, whom my sire 
Abhors — " 



" Hold, hold — thy words are death, 
The stranger cried, as wild he flung 

His mantle back, and show'd beneath 

The Gheber belt that round him clung — 

"Here, maiden, look — weep — blush to see 

All that thy sire abhors in me ! 

Yes — /am of that impious race, 



( IS2 ) 

Those Slaves of Fire, who, morn and even, 
Hail their Creator's dwelling-place 

Among the living lights of heaven ! 
Yes — / am of that outcast few. 
To Iran and to vengeance true. 
Who curse the hour your Arabs came 
To desolate our shrines of flame. 
And swear, before God's burning eye, 
To break our country's chains, or die ! 
Thy bigot sire — nay, tremble not — 

He who gave birth to those dear eyes 
With me is sacred as the spot 

From which our fires of worship rise ! 
But know — 't was he I sought that night, 

When, from my watch-boat on the sea, 
I caught this turret's glimmering light, 

And up the rude rocks desperately 
Rush'd to my prey — thou know'st the rest — 
I climb'd the gory vulture's nest. 
And found a trembling dove within — 
Thine, thine the victory — thine the sin — 
If Love hath made one thought his own, 
That vengeance claims first — last — alone! 
Oh ! had we never, never met, 
Or could this heart e'en now forget 
How link'd, how bless'd, we might have been. 
Had fate not frown'd so dark between ! 
Hadst thou been born a Persian maid, 

In neighboring valleys had we dwelt, 
Through the same fields in childhood play'd, 

At the same kindling altar knelt, — 
Then, then, while all those nameless ties, 
In which the charm of country lies. 
Had round our hearts been hourly spun, 
Till Iran's cause and thine were one; — 



( 153 ) 

While in thy lute's awakening sigh 
I heard the voice of days gone by, 
And saw in every smile of thine 
Returning hours of glory shine ! — 
While the wrong'd Spirit of our Land 

Lived, look'd, and spoke her wrongs through 
thee, — 
God ! who could then this sword withstand ? 

Its every flash were victory ! 
But now — estranged, divorced forever, 
Far as the grasp of Fate can sever, 
Our only ties what love has wove, — 

Faith, friends, and country, sunder'd wide ; 
And then, then only, true to love, 

When false to all that 's dear beside ! 
Thy father, Iran's deadliest foe — 
Thyself, perhaps, e'en now — but no — 
Hate never look'd so lovely yet ! 

No — sacred to thy soul will be 
The land of him who could forget 

All but that bleeding land for thee ! 
When other eyes shall see, unmoved, 

Her widows mourn, her warriors fall, 
Thou 'It think how well one Gheber loved, 

And for his sake thou 'It weep for all ! 
But look— " 

With sudden start he turn'd 

And pointed to the distant wave, 
Where lights, like charnel meteors, burn'd 

Bluely, as o'er some seaman's grave ; 
And fiery darts, at intervals. 

Flew up all sparkling from the main, 
As if each star that nightly falls, 

Were shooting back to heaven again. 




Now — Vengeance ! I am thine again." 
Fiercely he broke away, nor stopp'd 
Nor look'd — but from the lattice dropp'd 
Down 'mid the pointed crags beneath, 
As if he fled from love to death. 
While pale and mute young Hinda stood, 
Nor moved, till in the silent flood 
A momentary plunge below 
Startled her from her trance of woe ; 
Shrieking she to the lattice flew, 



( 156 ) 

" I come — I come — if in that tide 
Thou sleep'st to-night — I '11 sleep there too, 

In death's cold wedlock by thy side. 
Oh ! I would ask no happier bed 

Than the chill wave my love lies under; 
Sweeter to rest together dead, 

Far sweeter than to live asunder ! " 
But no, — their hour is not yet come, — 

Again she sees his pinnace fly. 
Wafting him fleetly to his home, 

Where'er that ill-starr'd home may lie ; 
And calm and smooth it seem'd to win 

Its moonlight way before the wind, 
As it bore all peace within. 

Nor left one breaking; heart behind ! 




( IS7 ) 

The Princess, whose heart was sad enough already, 
could have wished that Feramorz had chosen a less 
melancholy story; as it is only to the happy that 
tears are a luxury. Her ladie^ however, were by 
no means sorry that love was once more the poet's 
theme; for when he spoke of love, they said, his 
voice was as sweet as if he had chewed the leaves of 
that enchanted tree which grows over the tomb of 
the musician Tan-Sein. 

Their road all the morning had lain through a very 
dreary country, — through valleys, covered with a 
low bushy jungle, where, in more than one place, the 
awful signal of the bamboo staff, with the white flag 
at its top, reminded the traveller that in that very 
spot the tiger had made some human creature his 
victim. It was therefore with much pleasure that 
they arrived at sunset in a safe and lovely glen, and 
encamped under one of those holy trees whose 
smooth columns and spreading roofs seem to destine 
them for natural temples of Religion. Beneath the 
shade, some pious hands had erected pillars orna- 
mented with the most beautiful porcelain, which now 
supplied the use of mirrors to the young ladies, as 
they adjusted their hair in descending from the 
palankeens. Here, while, as usual, the Princess sat 
listening anxiously, with Fadladeen in one of his lof- 
tiest moods of criticism by her side, the young Poet, 
leaning against a branch of the tree, thus continued 
his story : — 



C i6o ) 

Angel of light ! who from the time 
Those heavens began their march subhme, 
Hath first of all the starry choir 
Trod in his Maker's steps of fire ! 

Where are the days, thou wondrous sphere, 
When Iran, like a sunflower, turn'd 
To meet that eye, where'er it burn'd? — 

When, from the banks of Bendemeer 
To the nut-groves of Samarcand, 
Thy temples flamed o'er all the land? 
Where are they ? ask the shades of them 

Who on Cadessia's bloody plains 
Saw fierce invaders pluck the gem 
From Iran's broken diadem, 

And bind her ancient faith in chains ; — 
Ask the poor exile, cast alone 
On foreign shores, unloved, unknown, 
Beyond the Caspian's Iron Gates, 

Or on the snowy Mossian mountains, 
Far from his beauteous land of dates. 

Her jasmine bowers and sunny fountains ! 
Yet happier so than if he trod 
His own beloved but blighted sod, 
Beneath a despot stranger's nod ! — 
Oh ! he would rather houseless roam 

Where freedom and his God may lead, 
Than be the sleekest slave at home 

That crouches to the conqueror's creed ! 
Is Iran's pride then gone forever, 

Quench'd with the flame in Mithra's caves? - 
No : she has sons that never — never — 

Will stoop to be the Moslem's slaves. 

While heaven has light or earth has graves. 
Spirits of fire, that brood not long, 
But flash resentment back for wrong ; 
And hearts where, slow but deep, the seeds 
Of vengeance ripen into deeds. 
Till, in some treacherous hour of calm. 



( i6i ) 

They burst, like Zeilan's giant palm, 
Whose buds fly open with a sound 
That shakes the pigmy forests round ! 

Yes, Emir ! he who scaled that tower. 

And, had he reach'd thy slumbering breast, 
Had taught thee, in a Gheber's power 

How safe even tyrant heads may rest — 
Is one of many, brave as he. 
Who loathe thy haughty race and thee ; 
Who, though they know the strife is vain. 
Who, though they know the riven chain 
Snaps but to enter in the heart 
Of him who rends its links apart, 
Yet dare the issue, — blest to be 
Even for one bleeding moment free, 
And die in pangs of liberty ! 
Thou know'st them well, — 't is some moons since 

Thy turban'd troops and blood-red flags, 
Thou satrap of a bigot prince ! 

Have swarm'd among these Green Sea crags ; 
Yet here, even here, a sacred band. 
Ay, in the portal of that land 
Thou, Arab, dar'st to call thy own. 
Their spears across thy path have thrown ; 
Here — ere the winds half wing'd thee o'er — 
Rebellion braved thee from the shore. 

Rebellion ! foul, dishonoring word. 

Whose wrongful blight so oft has stain'd 
The holiest cause that tongue or sword 

Of mortal ever lost or gain'd ! 
How many a spirit, born to bless, 

Hath sunk beneath that withering name, 
Whom but a day's, an hour's, success 

Had wafted to eternal fame ! 
As exhalations, when they burst 
From the warm earth, if chill'd at first, 





If check'd in soaring from the plain, 
Darken to fogs and sink again ; 
t, if they once triumphant spread 
wings above the mountain-head 
Becl^je enthroned in upper air, 
And tuiiwsto sun-bright glories there ! 

And who is he that ^JHds the might 

Of freedom on the Q^fe^ Sea brink, 
Before whose sabre's dazziwk light 

The eyes of Yemen's warrilj^ wink ! 
Who comes embower'd in the spears 
Of Kerman's hardy mountaineers, — 
Those mountaineers that truest, last 

Cling to their country's ancient rites, 
As if that God, whose eyelids cast 

Their closing gleams on Iran's heights, 
Among her snowy mountains threw 
The last light of his worship too ! 

'T is Hafed, — name of fear, whose sound 
Chills like the muttering of a charm ; — 
Shout but that awful name around, 
And palsy shakes the manliest arm. 

'T is Hafed, most accurst and dire 
(So rank'd by Moslem hate and ire) 
Of all the rebel Sons of Fire ! 
Of whose malign, tremendous power 
The Arabs, at their mid-watch hour. 
Such tales of fearful wonder tell, 
That each affrighted sentinel 
Pulls down his cowl upon his eyes. 
Lest Hafed in the midst should rise ! 
A man, they say, of monstrous birth, 
A mingled race of flame and earth, 
Sprung from those old, enchanted kings. 

Who, in their fairy helms, of yore, 
A feather from the mystic wings 
Of the Simoorgh resistless wore ; 



And gifted by the Fiends of Fire, 
Who groan'd to see their shrines expire, 
With charms that, all in vain withstood, 
Would drown the Koran's light in blood ! 



Such were the tales that won belief, 

And such the coloring fancy gave 
To a young, warm, and dauntless Chief, — 

One who, no more than mortal brave, 
Fought for the land his soul adored. 

For happy homes, and altars free, — 
His only talisman, the sword ; 

His only spell-word, Liberty ! 
One of that ancient hero line, 
Along whose glorious current shine 
Names that have sanctified their blood ; 
As Lebanon's small mountain flood 
Is render'd holy by the ranks 
Of sainted cedars on its banks ! 




( i64 ) 

'T was not for him to crouch the knee 
Tamely to Moslem tyranny ; 
'T was not for him, whose soul was cast 
In the bright mould of ages past, 
Whose melancholy spirit, fed 
With all the glories of the dead, 
Though framed for Iran's happiest years, 
Was born among her chains and tears ! — 
'T was not for him to swell the crowd 
Of slavish heads, that shrinking bovv'd 
Before the Moslem, as he pass'd, 
Like shrubs beneath the poison-blast — 
No: far he fled, — indignant fled 

The pageant of his country's shame ; 
While every tear her children shed 

Fell on his soul, like drops of flame ; 
And, as a lover hails the dawn 

Of a first smile, so welcomed he 
The sparkle of the first sword drawn 

For vengeance and for liberty ! 

But vain was valor, — vain the flower 
Of Kerman, in that deathful hour. 
Against Al Hassan's whelming power. 
In vain they met him, helm to helm, 
Upon the threshold of that realm 
He came in bigot pomp to sway, 
And with their corpses block'd his way, — 
In vain — for every lance they raised. 
Thousands around the conqueror blazed ; 
For every arm that lined their shore, 



( i65 ) 

Myriads of slaves were wafted o'er, — 
A bloody, bold, and countless crowd, 
Before whose swarm as fast they bow'd 
As dates beneath the locust-cloud ! 

There stood — but one short league away 
From old Harmozia's sultry bay — 
A rocky mountain, o'er the Sea 
Of Oman beetling awfully. 
A last and solitary link 

Of those stupendous chains that reach 
From the broad Caspian's reedy brink 

Down winding to the Green Sea beach. 
Around its base the bare rocks stood, 
Like naked giants, in the flood, 

As if to guard the gulf across ; 
While, on its peak, that braved the sky, 
A ruin'd temple tower'd, so high 

That oft the sleeping albatross 
Struck the wild ruins with her wing. 
And from her cloud-rock'd slumbering 
Started — to find man's dwelling there 
In her own silent fields of air ! 
Beneath, terrific caverns gave 
Dark welcome to each stormy wave 
That dash'd, like midnight revellers, in ; 
And such the strange, mysterious din 
At times throughout those caverns roll'd, 
And such the fearful wonders told 
Of restless sprites imprison'd there. 
That bold were Moslem who would dare, 
At twilight hour, to steer his skiff 
Beneath the Gheber's lonely cliff. 




On the land side, those towers sublime, 

That seem'd above the grasp of Time, 

Were sever'd from the haunts of men 

By a wide, deep, and wizard glen, 

So fathomless, so full of gloom, 

No eye could pierce the void between. 

It seem'd a place where Gholes might co^ 
With their foul banquets from the tomb. 

And in its caverns feed unseen. 
Like distant thunder, from below, 

The sound of many torrents came ; 
Too deep for eye or ear to know 
If 'twere the sea's imprison'd flow, 
Or floods of ever-restless flame. 
For each ravine, each rocky spire, 
Of that vast mountain stood on fire ; 
And, though forever past the days 
When God was worshipp'd in the blaze 
That from its lofty altar shone, — 
Though fled the priests, the votaries gone, — 
Still did the mighty flame burn on 
Through chance and change, through good and ill, 
Like its own God's eternal will, 
Deep, constant, bright, unquenchable ! 




"^i 






Thither the vanquish'd Hafed led 

His little army's last remains : 
" Welcome, terrific glen ! " he said, 
" Thy gloom, that Eblis' self might dread, 

Is heaven to him who flies from chains ! " 
O'er a dark, narrow bridgeway, known 
To him and to his chiefs alone, 
They cross'd the chasm and gain'd the towers. 
" This home," he cried, " at least is ours ; — 
Here we may bleed, unmock'd by hymns 

Of Moslem triumph o'er our head; 
Here we may fall, nor leave our limbs 

To quiver to the Moslem's tread. 
Stretch'd on this rock, while vultures' beaks 
Are whetted on our yet warm cheeks, 
Here, happy that no tyrant's eye 
Gloats on our torments, we may die ! " 
'T was night when to those towers they came. 
And gloomily the fitful flame 
That from the ruin'd altar broke, 
Glared on his features, as he spoke : 
" 'T is o'er, — what men could do, we 've done : 
If Iran wi/l look tamely on, 
And see her priests, her warriors, driven 

Before a sensual bigot's nod, — 
A wretch, who takes his lusts to heaven, 

And makes a pander of his God ! — 
If her proud sons, her high-born souls, 



( 168 ) 

Men in whose veins — oh, last disgrace ! — 
The blood of Zal and Rustam rolls, — 

If they will court this upstart race, 
And turn from Mithra's ancient ray, 
To kneel at shrines of yesterday ! 
If they will crouch to Iran's foes, — 

Why, let them — till the land's despair 
Cries out to heaven, and bondage grows 

Too vile for e'en the vile to bear ! 
Till shame at last, long hidden, burns 
Their inmost core, and conscience turns 
Each coward tear the slave lets fall 
Back on his heart in drops of gall ! 
But here, at least, are arms unchain'd, 
And souls that thraldom never stain'd ; — 

This spot, at least, no foot of slave 
Or satrap ever yet profaned ; 

And though but few, though fast the wave 
Of life is ebbing from our veins. 
Enough for vengeance still remains. 
As panthers, after set of sun. 
Rush from the roots of Lebanon 
Across the dark sea-robber's way, 
We'll bound upon our startled prey; 
And when some hearts that proudest swell 
Have felt our falchion's last farewell, 
When hope's expiring throb is o'er, 
And e'en despair can prompt no more. 
This spot shall be the sacred grave 
Of the last few who, vainly brave. 
Die for the land they cannot save ! " 



( i69 ) 

His chiefs stood round, each shining blade 
Upon the broken altar laid ; — 
And though so wild and desolate 
Those courts where once the mighty sate, 
Nor longer on those mouldering towers 
Was seen the feast of fruits and flowers 
With which of old the Magi fed 
The wandering spirits of their dead ; 
Though neither priest nor rites were there, 

Nor charmed leaf of pure pomegranate, 
Nor hymn, nor censer's fragrant air, 

Nor symbol of their worshipp'd planet ; 
Yet the same God that heard their sires 
Heard them, while on that altar's fires 
They swore the latest, holiest deed 
Of the few hearts still left to bleed 
Should be, in Iran's injured name. 
To die upon that Mount of Flame, — 
The last of all her patriot line, 
Before her last untrampled shrine ! 

Brave, suffering souls ! they little knew 
How many a tear their injuries drew 
From one meek maid, one gentle foe. 
Whom Love first touch'd with others' woe, - 
Whose life, as free from thought as sin, 
Slept like a lake, till Love threw in 
His talisman, and woke the tide. 
And spread its trembling circles wide. 
Once, Emir, thy unheeding child, 
'Mid all this havoc, bloom'd and smiled, — 



Tranquil as on some battle-plain 
The Persian lily shines and towers, 

Before the combat's reddening stain 
Hath fall'n upon her golden flowers. 

Light-hearted maid, unawed, unmoved, 

While heaven but spared the sire she loved, 




nee at thy evening tales of blood 
Unlistening and aloof she stood ; 
And oft, when thou hast paced along 

Thy haram halls with furious heat, 
Hast thou not cursed her cheerful song, 

That came across thee, calm and sweet, 
Like lutes of angels, touch'd so near 
Hell's confines, that the damn'd can hear? 




Far other feelings love hath 

brought, — 
Her soul all flame, her brow 

all sadness, 
She now has but the one dear 

thought, 
And thinks that o'er, almost 

to madness ! 
Oft doth her sinking heart 

recall 
His words, — " For my sake 

weep for all ; " 
And bitterly, as day on day 
Of revel carnage fast suc- 
ceeds, 
She weeps a lover snatch'd 

away 



In every Gheber wretch that bleeds. 
There 's not a sabre meets her eye 

But with his life-blood seems to swim ; 
There 's not an arrow wings the sky 

But fancy turns its point to him. 
No more she brings with footstep light 
Al Hassan's falchion for the fight; 
And, had he look'd with clearer sight, 
Had not the mists that ever rise 
From a foul spirit dimm'd his eyes, 
He would have mark'd her shuddering frame, 
When from the field of blood he came. 
The faltering speech, the look estranged, — 
Voice, step, and life, and beauty changed, 
He would have mark'd all this, and known 
Such change is wrought by love alone ! 




( 172 ) 

Ah ! not the love that should have bless'd 
So young, so innocent a breast; 
Not the pure, open, prosperous love, 
That, pledged on earth, and seal'd above, 
Grows in the world's approving eyes, 

In friendship's smile and home's caress, 
Collecting all the heart's sweet ties 

Into one knot of happiness ! 
No, Hinda, no ; — thy fatal flame 
Is nursed in silence, sorrow, shame, — 

A passion, without hope or pleasure. 
In thy soul's darkness buried deep. 

It lies like some ill-gotten treasure, — 
Some idol, without shrine or name, 
O'er which its pale- eyed votaries keep 
Unholy watch, while others sleep ! 
Seven nights have darken'd Oman's Sea, 

Since last, beneath the moonlight ray. 
She saw his light oar rapidly 

Hurry her Gheber's bark away; 
And still she goes, at midnight hour. 
To weep alone in that high bower, 
And watch, and look along the deep 
For him whose smiles first made her weep, 
But watching, weeping, all was vain. 
She never saw his bark again. 
The owlet's solitary cry; 



( 173 ) 

The night-hawk, flitting darkly by ; 

And oft the hateful carrion bird, 
Heavily flapping his clogg'd wing, 
Which reek'd with that day's banqueting, — - 

Was all she saw, was all she heard. 

'T is the eighth morn — Al Hassan's brow 

Is brighten'd with unusual joy, — 
What mighty mischief glads him now, 

Who never smiles but to destroy? 
The sparkle upon Herkend's Sea, 
When toss'd at midnight furiously, 
Tells not of wreck and ruin nigh 
More surely than that smiling eye ! 
"Up, daughter, up, — the kerna's breath 
Has blown a blast would waken death, 
And yet thou sleep'st, — up, child, and see 
This blessed day for heaven and me, 
A day more rich in Pagan blood 
Than ever flash'd o'er Oman's flood. 
Before another dawn shall shine, 
His head — heart — limbs — will all be mine ; 
This very night his blood shall steep 
These hands all over ere I sleep ! " — 
" His blood ! " she faintly scream'd, — her mind 
Still singling one from all mankind. 
" Yes ; — spite of his ravines and towers, 
Hafed, my child, this night is ours. 




f ^ 



-^ 



Thanks to all-conquering treachery, 
Without whose aid the links ac- 
cursed, 
That bind these impious slaves, 
would be 

Too strong for AUa's self to 
burst ! 
That rebel fiend, whose blade has 

spread 
My path with piles of Moslem 

dead. 
Whose baffling spells had almost 

driven 
Back from their course the Swords 

of Heaven, 
This night, with all his band, shall 

know 

How deep an Arab's steel can go, 
When God and vengeance speed the 

blow. 
And, Prophet ! by that holy wreath 
Thou wor'st on Ohod's field of death, 
T swear, for every sob that parts 
,^In anguish from these heathen hearts, 
Avgem from Persia's plunder'd mines 
Shall glitter on thy shrine of shrines. 



But ha ! — she sinks — that look 

so wild — ;> 

Those livid lips — my cnildi 

my child, 
This life of blood befits 

not thee, 





nd thou must back to Araby. 
Ne'er had I risk'd thy timid 
sex 
n scenes that man himself 

might dread. 
Had I not hoped our every 
tread 
Would be on prostrate Per- 
sian necks — 
Cursed race, they offer swords 

instead ! 
But cheer thee, maid, — the wind that 

now 
Is blowing o'er thy feverish brow. 
To-day shall waft thee from the 

shore ; 
And, ere a drop of this night's gore 
Have time to chill in yonder towers, 
Thou 'It see thy own sweet Arab 
bowers ! " 

./ 



r 



( 11^ ) 

His bloody boast was all too true : 

There lurk'd one wretch among the few 

Whom Hafed's eagle eye could count 

Around him on that Fiery Mount, — 

One miscreant, who for gold betray'd 

The pathway through the valley's shade 

To those high towers where Freedom stood 

In her last hold of flame and blood. 

Left on the field last dreadful night, 

When, sallying from their sacred height, 

The Ghebers fought hope's farewell fight. 

He lay — but died not with the brave: 

That sun, which should have gilt his grave, 

Saw him a traitor and a slave ; 

And while the few who thence return'd 

To their high rocky fortress mourn'd 

For him among the matchless dead 

They left behind on glory's bed. 

He lived, and in the face of morn 

Laugh'd them and Faith and Heaven to scorn ! 

Oh for a tongue to curse the slave, 

Whose treason, like a deadly blight. 
Comes o'er the councils of the brave. 

And blasts them in their hour of might ! 
May life's unblessed cup for him 
Be drugg'd with treacheries to the brim, 
With hopes that but allure to fly, 

With joys that vanish while he sips, — 



( 177 ) 

Like Dead-Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, 

But turn to ashes on the lips ! 
His country's curse, his children's shame, 
Outcast of virtue, peace, and fame, 
May he, at last, with lips of flame 
On the parch'd desert thirsting die, 
While lakes that shone in mockery nigh 
Are fading off, untouch'd, untasted, 
Like the once glorious hopes he blasted ! 
And when from earth his spirit flies, 

Just Prophet, let the damn'd one dwell 
Full in the sight of Paradise, 

Beholding heaven, and feeling hell ! 




Lalla Rookh had had a dream, the night before, 
which, in spite of the impending fate of poor Hafed, 
made her heart more than usually cheerful during the 
morning, and gave her cheeks all the freshened ani- 
mation of a flower that the Bidmusk had just passed 
over. She fancied that she was sailing on 
that Eastern ocean, where 





the sea-gypsies, who live forever on the water, enjoy 
a perpetual summer in wandering from isle to isle, 
when she saw a small gilded bark approaching her. 
It was like one of those boats which the Maldivian 
islanders annually send adrift, at the mercy of winds 
and waves, loaded with perfumes, flowers, and odor- 
iferous wood, as an offering to the Spirit whom 
they call King of the Sea. At first this little bark 
appeared to be empty, but on coming nearer — 

She had proceeded thus far in relating the dream 
to her ladies, when Feramorz appeared at the door of 
the pavilion. In his presence, of course, everything 
else was forgotten, and the continuance of the story 
was instantly requested by all. Fresh wood of aloes 
was set to burn in the cassolets ; the violet sherbets 
were hastily handed round, and after a short prelude 
on his lute, in the pathetic measure of Nava, which 
is always used to express the lamentations of absent 
lovers, the Poet thus continued : — 



The day is lowering, — stilly black 
Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven's rack. 
Dispersed and wild, 'twixt earth and sky 
Hangs like a shatter'd canopy ! 



( i8o ) 

There 's not a cloud in that blue plain 

But tells of storm to come or past; — 
Here flying loosely as the mane 

Of a young war-horse in the blast ; 
There roll'd in masses dark and swelling, 
As proud to be the thunder's dwelling ! 
While some, already burst and riven, 
Seem melting down the verge of heaven ; 
As though the infant storm had rent 

The mighty womb that gave him birth, 
And, having swept the firmament, 

Was now in fierce career for earth. 

On earth 't was yet all calm around, 
A pulseless silence, dread, profound. 
More awful than the tempest's sound. 
The diver steer'd for Ormus' bowers, 
And moor'd his skiff till calmer hours ; 
The sea-birds, with portentous screech. 
Flew fast to land ; — upon the beach 
The pilot oft had paused, with glance 
Turn'd upward to that wild expanse ; 
And all was boding, drear, and dark 
As her own soul, when Hinda's bark 
Went slowly from the Persian shore — 
No music timed her parting oar, 
Nor friends upon the lessening strand 



( i8i ) 

Linger'd, to wave the unseen hand, 
Or speak the farewell heard no more ; 
But lone, unheeded, from the bay 
The vessel takes its mournful way, 
Like some ill-destined bark that steers 
In silence through the Gate of Tears. 
And where was stern Al Hassan then ? 
Could not that saintly scourge of men 
From bloodshed and devotion spare 
One minute for a farewell there? 
No; — close within, in changeful fits 
Of cursing and of prayer, he sits 
In savage loneliness to brood 
Upon the coming night of blood, 

With that keen second-scent of death, 
By which the vulture snuffs his food 

In the still warm and living breath ! 
While o'er the wave his weeping daughter 
Is wafted from these scenes of slaughter, — 
As a young bird of Babylon, 
Let loose to tell of victory won. 
Flies home, with wing, ah ! not unstain'd 
By the red hands that held her chain'd. 

And does the long-left home she seeks 

Light up no gladness on her cheeks? 

The flowers she nursed, — the well-known groves. 



Where oft in dreams her spirit roves, — 
Once more to see her dear gazelles 
Come bounding with their silver bells ; 
Her birds' new plumage to behold, 

And the gay, gleaming fishes count, 
She left, all filleted with gold. 

Shooting around their jasper fount, - - 
Her little garden mosque to see. 

And once again, at evening hour, 
To tell her ruby rosary 

In her own sweet acacia bower, — 

Can these delights, that wait her 

now, 
Call up no sunshine on her brow? 
No ; — silent, from her train apart, 
As if even now she felt at heart 
The chill of her approaching doom. 
She sits, all lovely in her gloom 
As a pale angel of the grave; 
And o'er the wide tempestuous 

wave 
Looks, with a shudder, to those 

towers 
Where, in a few short awful hours, 
Blood, blood, in steaming tides 

shall run. 
Foul incense for to-morrow's sun ! 




" Where art thou, glorious stranger ! thou, 

So loved, so lost, where art thou now? 

Foe — Gheber — infidel — whate'er 

Th' unhallow'd name thou 'rt doom'd to bear, 

Still glorious, — still to this fond heart 

Dear as its blood, whate'er thou art ! 

Yes, — Alia, dreadful Alia ! yes, — 

If there be wrong, be crime in this, 

Let the black waves, that round us roll, 

Whelm me this instant, ere my soul, 

Forgetting faith, home, father, — all, — 

Before its earthly idol fall. 

Nor worship even Thyself above him. 

For, oh ! so wildly do I love him, 

Thy Paradise itself were dim 

And joyless, if not shared with him ! " 

Her hands were clasp'd, — her eyes upturn'd. 
Dropping their tears like moonlight rain ; 

And though her lip, fond raver ! burn'd 
With words of passion, bold, profane, 




( 184 ) 

Yet was there light around her brow, 

A holiness in those dark eyes, 
Which show'd, — though wandering earthward 
now, — 

Her spirit's home was in the skies. 
Yes, — for a spirit pure as hers 
Is always pure, even while it errs; 
As sunshine broken in the rill, 
Though turn'd astray, is sunshine still ! 

So wholly had her mind forgot 

All thoughts but one, she heeded not 

The rising storm, — the wave that cast 

A moment's midnight, as it pass'd, — 

Nor heard the frequent shout, the tread 

Of gathering tumult o'er her head, — 

Clash'd swords, and tongues that seem'd to vie 

With the rude riot of the sky. 

But, hark ! — that war-whoop on the deck, — 

That crash, as if each engine there, 
Mast, sails, and all, were going to wreck, 

'Mid yells and stampings of despair ! 
Merciful Heaven ! what can it be ? 
'T is not the storm, though fearfully 
The ship had shudder'd as she rode 
O'er mountain waves. " Forgive me, God ! 
Forgive me ! " shriek'd the maid, and knelt, 
Trembling all over, — for she felt 
As if her judgment-hour was near ; 
While crouching round, half dead with fear, 
Her handmaids clung, nor breathed, nor stirr'd - 
When, hark ! — a second crash — a third — 
And now, as if a bolt of thunder 



( 185 ) 

Had riven the laboring planks asunder, 
The deck falls in, — what horrors then ! 
Blood, waves, and tackle, swords and men, 
Come mix'd together through the chasm; 
Some wretches in their dying spasm 
Still fighting on, and some that call 
" For God and Iran ! " as they fall ! 

Whose was the hand that turn'd away 
The perils of th' infuriate fray, 
And snatch'd her breathless from beneath 
This wilderment of wreck and death? 
She knew not, — for a faintness came 
Chill o'er her, and her sinking frame 
Amid the ruins of that hour 
Lay, like a pale and scorched flower. 
Beneath the red volcano's shower ! 
But, oh ! the sights and sounds of dread 
That shock'd her, ere her senses fled ! 
The yawning deck, — the crowd that strove 
Upon the tottering planks above, — 
The sail, whose fragments, shivering o'er 
The strugglers' heads, all dash'd with gore, 
Flutter'd like bloody flags, — the clash 
Of sabres, and the lightning's flash 
Upon their blades, high toss'd about 
Like meteor brands, — as if throughout 

The elements one fury ran. 
One general rage, that left a doubt 

Which was the fiercer. Heaven or Man ! 
Once too — but no — it could not be — 

'T was fancy all — yet once she thought 



While yet her fading eyes could see, 

High on the ruin'd deck she caught 
A glimpse of that unearthly form, 

That glory of her soul, — even then, 
Amid the whirl of wreck and storm. 

Shining above his fellow men. 
As, on some black and troublous night. 
The Star of Egypt, whose proud light 
Never hath beam'd on those who rest 
In the White Islands of the West, 
Burns through the storm with looks of flame 
That put heaven's cloudier eyes to shame ! 
But no ; — 'twas but the minute's dream, — 
A fantasy, — and ere the scream 

Had half-way pass'd her pallid lips, 
A death-like swoon, a chill eclipse 
Of soul and sense, its darkness 

spread 
Around her, and she sunk, as dead ! 




How calm, how beautiful, comes 

on 
The stilly hour, when storms are 
gone; 
When warring winds have 
died away. 
And clouds, beneath 
the dancing ray. 
Melt off, and leave 
the land and 
sea 



( i88 ) 

Had vassal breezes of their own 
To watch and wait on them alone, 
And waft no other breath than theirs ! 
When the blue waters rise and fall, 
In sleepy sunshine mantling all ; 
And even that swell the tempest leaves 
Is like the full and silent heaves 
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest, 
Too newly to be quite at rest ! 

Such was the golden hour that broke 
Upon the world when Hinda woke 
From her long trance, and heard around 
No motion but the water's sound 
Rippling against the vessel's side, 
As slow it mounted o'er the tide. — 
But where is she? — her eyes are dark, 
Are wilder'd still, — is this the bark. 
The same, that from Harmozia's bay 
Bore her at morn, — whose bloody way 
The sea-dog tracks? — no ; strange and new 
Is all that meets her wondering view. 
Upon a galliot's deck she lies. 

Beneath no rich pavilion's shade. 
No plumes to fan her sleeping eyes, 

Nor jasmine on her pillow laid. 
But the rude litter, roughly spread 
With war cloaks, is her homely bed. 
And shawl and sash, on javelins hung, 
For awning o'er her head are flung. 
Shuddering she look'd around, — there lay 

A group of warriors in the sun 
Resting their limbs, as for that day 



C i89 ) 

Their ministry of death were done. 
Some gazing on the drowsy sea, 
Lost in unconscious reverie ; 
And some, who seem'd but ill to brook 
That sluggish calm, with many a look 
To the slack sail impatient cast. 
As loose it flagg'd around the mast. 

Blest Alia ! who shall save her now? 

There 's not in all that warrior-band 
One Arab sword, one turban'd brow 

From her own faithful Moslem land. 
Their garb — the leathern belt that wraps 

Each yellow vest — that rebel hue — 
The Tartar fleece upon their caps — 

Yes — yes — her fears are all too true. 
And Heaven hath, in this dreadful hour, 
Abandon'd her to Hafed's power, — 
Hafed, the Gheber ! — at the thought 

Her very heart's blood chills within ; 
He, whom her soul was hourly taught 

To loathe, as some foul fiend of sin. 
Some minister, whom Hell had sent 
To spread its blast, where'er he went. 
And fling, as o'er our earth he trod, 
His shadow betwixt man and God ! 
And she is now his captive, — thrown 
In his fierce hands, alive, alone ; 
His the infuriate band she sees. 
All infidels — all enemies ! 
What was the daring hope that then 
Cross'd her like lightning, as again. 
With boldness that despair had lent. 



She darted through that arm^d crowd 
A look so searching, so intent, 

That e'en the sternest warrior bow'd 
Abash'd, when he her glances caught, 
As if he guessed whose form they sought. 
But no, — she sees him not, — 'tis gone: 
The vision that before her shone 
Through all the maze of blood and storm, 
Is fled ; 'twas but a phantom form, — 
One of those passing, rainbow dreams, 
Half light, half shade, which fancy's beams 
Paint on the fleeting mists that roll 
In trance or slumber round the soul ! 



But now the bark, with livelier bound, 

Scales the blue wave ; the crew 's in motion ; 

The oars are out, and with light sound 
Break the bright mirror of the ocean, 

Scattering its brilliant fragments round. 

And now she sees — with horrc 




Their course is toward that mountain hold, — 

Those towers, that make her life-blood freeze, 

Where Mecca's godless enemies 

Lie, like beleaguer'd scorpions, roU'd 
In their last deadly, venomous fold ! 

Amid th' illumined land and flood 

Sunless that mighty mountain stood ; 

Save where, above its awful head, ._^. 

There shone a flaming cloud, blood-red. 

As 't were the flag of destiny 

Hung out to mark where death would be ! 

Had her bewilder'd mind the power 

Of thought in this terrific hour, 

She well might marvel where or how 

Man's foot could scale that mountain's broiy<; 



Since ne'er had Arab heard or known 
Of path but through the glen alone. 
But every thought was lost in fear. 
When, as their bounding bark drew near 
The craggy base, she felt the waves 
Hurry them towards those dismal caves 
That from the deep in windings pass 
Beneath that mount's volcanic mass ; 
And loud a voice on deck commands 
To lower the mast and light the brands ! 
Instantly o'er the dashing tide 
Within a cavern's mouth they glide. 
Gloomy as that eternal porch 
Through which departed 

spirits go ; — 
Not e'en the flare of bran^ 

and torch 
Its flickering light^; 

further throw 
Than the thick flood tb^ 

boil'd below. 



LcH--: 





( 192 ) 

Silent they floated ; as if each 
Sat breathless, and too awed for speech 
In that dark chasm, where even sound 
Seem'd dark, — so sullenly around 
The goblin echoes of the cave 
Mutter'd it o'er the long black wave, 
As 't were some secret of the grave ! 
But soft — they pause — the current turns 

Beneath them from its onward track. 
Some mighty, unseen barrier spurns 

The vexed tide, all foaming, back, 
And scarce the oar's redoubled force 
Can stem the eddy's whirling course ; 
When, hark ! — some desperate foot has sprung 
Among the rocks, — the chain is flung, — 
The oars are up, — the grapple clings. 
And the toss'd bark in moorings swings. 
Just then a daybeam through the shade 
Broke tremulous ; but ere the maid 
Can see from whence the brightness steals, 
Upon her brow she shuddering feels 
A viewless hand, that promptly ties 
A bandage round her burning eyes; 
While the rude litter where she lies, 
Uplifted by the warrior throng. 
O'er the steep rocks is borne along. 

Blest power of sunshine ! genial Day, 
What balm, what life, is in thy ray ! 
To feel thee is such real bliss. 
That had the world no joy but this, 
To sit in sunshine calm and sweet, — 
It were a world too exquisite 
For man to leave it for the gloom, 
The deep, cold shadow of the tomb ! 
E'en Hinda, though she saw not where 
Or whither wound the perilous road, 
Yet knew by that awakening air 



( 193 ) 

Which suddenly around her glow'd, 
That they had risen from darkness then, 
And breathed the sunny world again ! 
But soon this balmy freshness fled ; 
For now the steepy labyrinth led 
Through damp and gloom, — 'mid crash of boughs 
And fall of loosen'd crags that rouse 
The leopard from his hungry sleep, 

Who, starting, thinks each crag a prey, 
And long is heard from steep to steep. 

Chasing them down their thundering way ! 
The jackal's cry, — the distant moan 
Of the hyena, fierce and lone ; 
And that eternal, saddening sound 

Of torrents in the glen beneath, 
As 'twere the ever-dark profound 

That rolls beneath the Bridge of Death ! 
All, all is fearful, — e'en to see. 

To gaze on those terrific things 
She now but blindly hears, would be 

Relief co her imaginings ! 
Since never yet was shape so dread, 

But fancy, thus in darkness thrown, 
And by such sounds of horror fed. 

Could frame more dreadful of her own. 

But does she dream? Has fear again 
Perplex'd the workings of her brain. 
Or did a voice, all music, then 
Come from the gloom, low whispering near, — 
"Tremble not, love, thy Gheber 's here"? 
She does not dream, — all sense, all ear, 
She drinks the words, " Thy Gheber 's here." 
'Twas his own voice, — she could not err, — 

Throughout the breathing world's extent 
There was but one such voice for her, 

So kind, so soft, so eloquent ! 



■»ffi; 



.V;^-i 



J' 



Oh ! sooner shall the rose of M^^ 
Mistake hef own sweet nightingale, 
And to some meaner minstrel's lay- 
Open her bosom's glowing veil, 
Than love shall ever doubt a tone, 
A breath, of the beloved one ! 

Though blest, 'mid all her ills, to think 

She has that one beloved near. 
Whose smile, though met on ruin's brink, 
Hath power to make e'en ruin dear, — 
Yet soon this gleam of rapture, cross'd 
By fears for him, is chill'd and lost. 
How shall the ruthless Hafed brook 
That one of Gheber blood should look. 
With aught but curses in his eye. 

On her, — - a maid of Araby, — 
A Moslem maid, — the child 
of him 
Whose bloody banner's dire 
success 



-jW". 



K,><i,. 



* 



"Hath left their 
altars cold and dim. 
And their fair land a wilderness ! 
And, worsaJifeaJLiiiL that night .of blood 

WhJclv comes" so fast — oh! who shall stay 
The sword that CT^p-teth tasted food 



Of Persian hearts, or turn its way? 
What arm shall then the victim cover, 
Or from her father shield her lover? 
" Save him, my God ! " she inly cries, — 
" Save him this night ; and if thine eyes 

Have ever welcomed with delight 
The sinner's tears, the sacrifice 

Of sinners' hearts, guard him this night. 
And here, before thy throne, I swear 
From my heart's inmost core to tear 

Love, hope, remembrance, though they bj 
Link'd with each quivering life-string there, 

And give it bleeding all to Thee ! 
Let him but live, the burning tear. 
The sighs, so sinful, yet so dear. 
Which have been all too much his own, 
Shall from this hour be Heaven's alone. 
Youth pass'd in penitence, and age 
In Iqng and painful pilgrimage. 
Shall leave no traces of the flame 





That wastes me now, — nor shall his 

name 
E'er bless my lips, but when I pray 
For his dear spirit, that away 
Casting from its angelic ray 
Th' eclipse of earth, he too may shine 
Redeem'd, all-glorious and all thine ! 
Think — think what victory to win 



One radiant soul like his from sin, — 
One wandering star of virtue back 
To its own native, heavenward track ! 
Let him but live, and both are thine. 

Together thine, — for, bless'd or 
cross'd, 
Living or dead, his doom is mine, 

And if he perish, both are lost ! " 



( ^96 ) 

The next evening Lalla Rookh was entreated by 
her ladies to continue the relation of her wonderful 
dream ; but the fearful interest that hung round the 
fate of Hinda and her lover had completely removed 
every trace of it from her mind ; — much to the 
disappointment of a fair seer or two in her train, 
who prided themselves on their skill in interpreting 
visions, and who had already remarked, as an un- 
lucky omen, that the Princess, on the very morning 
after the dream, had worn a silk dyed with the 
blossoms of the sorrowful tree, Nilica. 

Fadladeen, whose wrath had more than once broken 
out during the recital of some parts of this most 
heterodox poem, seemed at length to have made 
up his mind to the infliction ; and took his seat 
this evening with all the patience of a martyr, while 
the Poet continued his profane and seditious story 
thus : — 




( ^91 ) 

To tearless eyes and hearts at ease 
The leafy shores and sun-bright seas, 
That lay beneath the mountain's height, 
Had been a fair, enchanting sight. 
'Twas one of those ambrosial eves 
A day of storm so often leaves 
At its calm setting, — when the west 
Opens her golden bowers of rest, 
And a moist radiance from the skies 
Shoots trembling down, as from the eyes 
Of some meek penitent, whose last, 
Bright hours atone for dark ones past, 
And whose sweet tears, o'er wrong forgiven, 
Shine, as they fall, with light from heaven ! 

'Twas stillness all, — the winds that late i 

Had rush'd through Kerman's almond groves, 
And shaken from her bowers of date 

That cooling feast the traveller loves, \ 

Now, lull'd to languor, scarcely curl j 

The Green Sea wave, whose waters gleam '\ 

Limpid, as if her mines of pearl '■ 

Were melted all to form the stream ; 
And her fair islets, small and bright, J 

With their green shores reflected there, \ 

Look like those Peri isles of light, ; 

That hang by spell-work in the air. : 

But vainly did these glories burst i 

On Hinda's dazzled eyes, when first i 

The bandage from her brow was taken, j 

And pale and awed as those who waken \ 

In their dark tombs, — when, scowling near, ' 




The Searchers of the grave appear, — 
She shuddering turn'd to read her fate 
In the fierce eyes that flash'd around, 
And saw those towers all desolate, 

That o'er her head terrific frown'd, 
As if defying e'en the smile 
Of that soft heaven to gild their pile. 
In vain, with mingled hope and fear. 
She looks for him whose voice so dear 
Had come, like music, to her ear — 
Strange, mocking dream ! again 't is fled, 
And, oh ! the shoots, the pangs, of dread 
That through her inmost bosom run. 

When voices from without proclaim 
" Hafed, the Chief," — and, one by one, 
The warriors shout that fearful name ! 
He comes, — the rock resounds his tread, — 
How shall she dare to lift her head. 
Or meet those eyes, whose scorching glare 
Not Yemen's boldest sons can bear? 

In whose red beam, the Moslem tells, 
Such rank and deadly lustre dwells. 



As in those hellish fires that light 

The mandrake's charnel leaves at night ! 

How shall she bear that voice's tone, 

At whose loud battle-cry alone 

Whole squadrons oft in panic ran, 

Scatter'd, like some vast caravan. 

When, stretch'd at evening round the well. 

They hear the thirsting tiger's yell. 

Breathless she stands, with eyes cast down, 
Shrinking beneath the fiery frown 
Which, fancy tells her, from that brow 
Is flashing o'er her fiercely now; 
And shuddering, as she hears the tread 

Of his retiring warrior band. 
Never was pause so full of dread ; 

Till Hafed with a trembling hand 
Took hers, and, leaning o'er her, said, 
" Hinda ! " — that word was all he spoke. 
And 'twas enough, — the shriek that broke 

From her full bosom told the rest ; 
Panting with terror, joy, surprise. 




( 200 ) 

The maid but lifts her wondering eyes, 

To hide them on her Gheber's breast! 
'T is he, 't is he, — the man of blood, 
The fellest of the Fire-fiend's brood, 
Hafed, the demon of the fight. 
Whose voice unnerves, whose glances blight, 
Is her own loved Gheber, mild 
And glorious as when first he smiled 
In her lone tower, and left such beams 
Of his pure eye to light her dreams, 
That she believed her bower had given 
Rest to some wanderer from heaven ! 

Moments there are, and this was one, 
Snatch'd like a minute's gleam of sun 
Amid the black simoom's eclipse, — 

Or like those verdant spots that bloom 
Around the crater's burning lips. 

Sweetening the very edge of doom ! 
The past, — the future, — all that fate 
Can bring of dark or desperate 
Around such hours, but makes them cast 
Intenser radiance while they last ! 

E'en he, this youth, — though dimm'd and gone 
Each star of hope that cheer'd him on, — 
His glories lost, his cause betray'd, 
Iran, his dear-loved country, made 



( 201 ) 

A land of carcasses and slaves, 

One dreary waste of chains and graves ! 

Himself but lingering, dead at heart. 

To see the last, long-struggling breath 
Of Liberty's great soul depart, 

Then lay him down, and share her death, - 
E'en he, so sunk in wretchedness. 

With doom still darker gathering o'er him. 
Yet in this moment's pure caress, 

In the mild eyes that shone before him. 
Beaming that blest assurance, worth 
All other transports known on earth. 
That he was loved, — well, warmly loved, — 
Oh ! in this precious hour he proved 
How deep, how thorough-felt the glow 
Of rapture, kindling out of woe ; — 
How exquisite one single drop 
Of bliss, thus sparkling to the top 
Of misery's cup, — how keenly quaff' d. 
Though death must follow on the draught ! 

She too, while gazing on those eyes 

That sink into her soul so deep. 
Forgets all fears, all miseries. 

Or feels them like the wretch in sleep, 
Whom fancy cheats into a smile. 
Who dreams of joy, and sobs the while ! 



The mighty ruins where tliey stood, 

Upon the mount's high, rocky verge, 
Lay open towards the ocean flood. 

Where lightly o'er th' illumined surge 
Many a fair bark that, all the day, 
Had lurk'd in sheltering creek or bay, 
Now bounded on and gave their sails, 
Yet dripping, to the evening gales ; 
Like eagles, when the storm is done, 
Spreading their wet wings in the sun. 
The beauteous clouds, though daylight's star 
Had sunk behind the hills of Lar, 
Were still with lingering glories bright, — 
As if, to grace the gorgeous west, 

The Spirit of departing Light 
That eve had left its sunny vest 

Behind him, ere he wing'd his flight. 
Never was scene so form'd for love 1 
Beneath them waves of crystal move 
In silent swell, heaven glows above ; 
And their pure hearts, to transport given, 
Swell like the wave, and glow like heaven ! 
But, ah ! too soon that dream is past; 




Again, again her fear returns; — 
Night, dreadful night, is gathering fast, 

More faintly the horizon burns. 
And every rosy tint that lay 
On the smooth sea hath died away. 
Hastily to the darkening skies 
A glance she casts, then wildly cries : 
■" 'At night,' he said — and, look, 'tis near — 

Fly, fly — if yet thou lov'st me, fly — 
Soon will his murderous band be here, 

And I shall see thee bleed and die. 
Hush ! — heard'st thou not the tramp of men 
Sounding from yonder fearful glen ! — 

Perhaps e'en now they climb the wood — 
fly — though still the west 

is bright, 
He '11 come — oh ! yes — he wants 
thy blood — 
I know him — he '11 not wait 
for night ! " 



In terrors e'en to agony 

She clings around the won- 
dering Chief; — 
' Alas, poor wilder'd maid ! 
to me 
Thou ow'st this raving trance 
of grief. 
Lost as I am, nought ever grew 
Beneath my shade but perish'd 
too, — 
My doom is like the Dead-Sea 

air. 
And nothing lives that enters 
there ! 
Why were our barks together 
driven 




( 204 ) 

Beneath this morning's furious heaven? 
Why, when I saw the prize that chance 

Had thrown into my desperate arms, - — 
When, casting but a single glance 

Upon thy pale and prostrate charms, 
I vow'd (though watching viewless o'er 

Thy safety through that hour's alarms) 
To meet th' unmanning sight no more, — 
Why have I broke that heart-wrung vow? 
Why weakly, madly, met thee now? — 
Start not, — that noise is but the shock 

Of torrents through yon valley hurl'd ; 
Dread nothing here, — upon this rock 

We stand above the jarring world, 
Alike beyond its hope, its dread, 
In gloomy safety, like the dead ! 
Or, could e'en earth and hell unite 
In league to storm this sacred height. 
Fear nothing now, — myself, to-night, 
And each o'erlooking star that dwells 
Near God, will be thy sentinels ; 
And, ere to-morrow's dawn shall glow, 
Back to thy sire — " 

" To-morrow ! — no," 
The maiden scream'd, — " thou 'It never see 
To-morrow's sun — death, death will be 
The night-cry through each reeking tower, 
Unless we fly, aye, fly this hour ! 
Thou art betray'd — some wretch who knew 
That dreadful glen's mysterious clew — 
Nay, doubt not — by yon stars, 't is true — 
Hath sold thee to my vengeful sire ; 
This morning, with that smile so dire 



( 205 ) 

He wears in joy, he told me all, 

And stamp'd in triumph through our hall, 

As though thy heart already beat 

Its last life-throb beneath his feet ! 

Good Heaven, how little dream'd I then 

His victim was my own loved youth ! — 
Fly — - send — let some one watch the glen — 

By all my hopes of heaven, 't is truth ! " 
Oh ! colder than the wind that freezes 

Founts that but now in sunshine play'd. 
Is that congealing pang which seizes 

The trusting bosom when betray'd. 
He felt it — deeply felt — and stood, 
As if the tale had frozen his blood. 

So mazed and motionless was he ; 
Like one whom sudden spells enchant. 
Or some mute, marble habitant 

Of the still Halls of Ishmonie ! 

But soon the painful chill was o'er. 
And his great soul, herself once more, 
Look'd from his brow in all the rays 
Of her bestj happiest, grandest days ! 
Never, in moment most elate, 

Did that high spirit loftier rise; 
While bright, serene, determinate, 

His looks are lifted to the skies, 
As if the signal-lights of fate 

Were shining in those awful eyes ! 
'T is come, — his hour of martyrdom 
In Iran's sacred cause is come ; 
And though his life hath pass'd away 
Like lightning on a stormy day. 



Yet shall his death-hour leave a track 

Of glory, permanent and bright, 
To which the brave of after-times, 
The suffering brave, shall long look back 
With proud regret, and by its light 
Watch through the hours of slavery's night 
For vengeance on th' oppressor's crimes ! 
This rock, his monument aloft. 
Shall speak the tale to many an 
age; 
And hither bards and heroes oft 

Shall come in secret pilgrimage. 
And bring their warrior sons, and 

tell 
The wondering boys where Hafed 

fell. 
And swear them on those lone 

remains -,— 

Of their lost country's ancient 

fanes. 
Never — while breath of life shall 

live 
Within them — never to forgive 
Th' accursed race, whose ruthless 
chain 



^4 




'■'Wlt^ 



**!•■.■ 



Hath left on Iran's neck a stain 
Blood, blood alone can cleanse again ! 

Such are the swelling thoughts that now 
Enthrone themselves on Hafed's brow; 
And ne'er did saint of Issa gaze 

On the red wreath, for martyrs twined, 
More proudly than the youth surveys 

That pile, which through the gloom behind 
Half lighted by the altar's fire. 
Glimmers, — his destined funeral pyre ! 
Heap'd by his own, his comrades' hands, 




Of every wood of odorous breath, 
There, by the Fire-God's shrine it stands, 

Ready to fold in radiant death 
The few still left of those who swore 
To perish there, when hope was o'er, — 
The few, to whom that couch of flame. 
Which rescues them from bonds and shame, 
Is sweet and welcome as the bed 
For their own infant Prophet spread. 
When pitying Heaven to roses turn'd 
The death-flames that beneath him burn'd ! 



( 208 ) 

With watchfulness the maid attends 

His rapid glance, where'er it bends — 

Why shoot his eyes such awful beams? 

What plans he now? what thinks or dreams? 

Alas ! why stands he musing here, 

When every moment teems with fear? 

" Hafed, my own beloved lord," 

She kneeling cries, — " first, last adored ! 

If in that soul thou 'st ever felt 

Half what thy lips impassion'd swore, 
Here, on my knees that never knelt 

To any but their God before, 
I pray thee, as thou lov'st me, fly — 
Now, now — ere yet their blades are nigh. 
Oh, haste — the bark that bore me hither 

Can waft us o'er yon darkening sea 
East — west — alas, I care not whither 

So thou art safe, and I with thee ! 
Go where we will, this hand in thine, 

Those eyes before me smiling thus. 
Through good and ill, through storm and shine. 

The world 's a world of love for us ! 
On some calm, blessed shore we '11 dwell, 
Where 't is no crime to love too well, — 
Where thus to worship tenderly 
An erring child of light like thee 
Will not be sin ; or, if it be, 
Where we may weep our faults away 
Together kneeling, night and day, — 
Thou, for my sake, at Alla's shrine, 
And I — at any God's, for thine ! " 

Wildly these passionate words she spoke. 
Then hung her head, and wept for shame ; 

Sobbing, as if a heart-string broke 

With every deep-heaved sob that came. 



( 209 ) 

While he, young, warm — oh ! wonder not 
If for a moment pride and fame, 
His oath, his cause, that shrine of flame. 
And Iran's self are all forgot 
For her whom at his feet he sees 
Kneeling in speechless agonies. 
JMo, blame him not, if Hope awhile 
Dawn'd in his soul, and threw her smile 
O'er hours to come, — o'er days and nights 
Wing'd with those precious, pure delights 
Which she, who bends all beauteous there. 
Was born to kindle and to share ! 

A tear or two, which, as he bow'd 

To raise the suppliant, trembling stole. 
First warn'd him of this dangerous cloud 

Of softness passing o'er his soul. 
Starting, he brush'd the drops away. 
Unworthy o'er that cheek to stray ; — 
Like one who, on the morn of fight, 
Shakes from his sword the dews of night. 
That had but dimm'd, not stain'd, its light. 
Yet, though subdued th' unnerving thrill, 
Its warmth, its weakness, linger'd still. 

So touching in each look and tone. 
That the fond, fearing, hoping maid 
Half counted on the flight she pray'd. 

Half thought the hero's soul was grown 

As soft, as yielding as her own. 
And smiled and bless'd him, while he said: 
■" Yes, — if there be some happier sphere 
Where fadeless truth like ours is dear, 
If there be any land of rest 

For those who love and ne'er forget. 
Oh ! comfort thee, — for safe and blest 

We '11 meet in that calm region yet ! " 




Scarce had she time to ask her heart 
If good or ill these words impart, 
When the roused youth impatient flew 
To the tower-wall, where, high in view, 
A ponderous sea-horn hung, and blew 
A signal, deep and dread as those 
The storm-fiend at his rising blows. 
Full well his chieftains, sworn and true 
Through life and death, that signal knew; 
For 't was th' appointed warning-blast, 
Th' alarm, to tell when hope was past 




And the tremendous death-die cast! 
And there, upon the mouldering tower, 
Hath hung this sea-horn many an hour. 
Ready to sound o'er land and sea 
That dirge-note of the brave and free. 
They came, — his chieftains at the call 
Came slowly round, and with them all — • 
Alas, how few ! — the worn remains 
Of those who late o'er Kerman's plains 
Went gayly prancing to the clash 

Of Moorish zel and tymbalon. 
Catching new hope from every flash 

Of their long lances in the sun, 
And, as their coursers charged the wind, 
And the white ox-tails stream'd behind, 
Looking as if the steeds they rode 
Were wing'd, and every chief a god ! 
How fallen, how alter'd now ! how wan 
Each scarred and faded visage shone. 
As round the burning shrine they came ; - 

How deadly was the glare it cast, 



( 212 ) 

As mute they paused before the flame 
To light their torches as they pass'd ! 
'T was silence all, — the youth had plann'd 
The duties of his soldier-band ; 
And each determined brow declares 
His faithful chieftains well know theirs. 

But minutes speed, — night gems the skies, — 
And oh, how soon, ye blessed eyes 
That look from heaven, ye may behold 
Sights that will turn your star-fires cold ! 
Breathless with awe, impatience, hope. 
The maiden sees the veteran group 
Her litter silently prepare. 

And lay it at her trembling feet ; — 
And now the youth, with gentle care. 

Hath placed her in the shelter'd seat, 
And press'd her hand, — that lingering press 

Of hands, that for the last time sever ; 
Of hearts, whose pulse of happiness, 

When that hold breaks, is dead forever. 
And yet to her this sad caress 

Gives hope, — so fondly hope can err ! 
'T was joy, she thought, joy's mute excess, — 

Their happy flight's dear harbinger ; 
'T was warmth, assurance, tenderness, — 

'T was anything but leaving her. 

" Haste, haste ! " she cried, " the clouds grow dark, 
But still, ere night, we 'II reach the bark; 
And by to-morrow's dawn — oh, bliss ! — 

With thee upon the sun-bright deep, 
Far off, I '11 but remember this, 



( 213 ) 

As some dark vanisli'd dream of sleep ! 
And thou — " But, ha ! he answers not — 

Good Heaven ! — and does she go alone? 
She now has reach'd that dismal spot 

Where, some hours since, his voice's tone 
Had come to soothe her fears and ills, 
Sweet as the angel Israfil's, 
When every leaf on Eden's tree 
Is trembling to his minstrelsy ; 
Yet now — oh, now, he is not nigh — 

" Hafed ! my Hafed ! if it be 
Thy will, thy doom, this night to die, 

Let me but stay to die with thee, 
And I will bless thy loved name. 
Till the last life-breath leave this frame. 
Oh ! let our lips, our cheeks, be laid 
But near each other while they fade; 
Let us but mix our parting breaths, 
And I can die ten thousand deaths ! 
You too, who hurry me away 
So cruelly, one moment stay — 

Oh ! stay — one moment is not much — 
He yet may come — for him I pray — 
Hafed ! dear Hafed ! " — all the way 

In wild lamentings, that would touch 
A heart of stone, she shriek'd his name 
To the dark woods, — no Hafed came. 
No, hapless pair, you 've look'd your last ; 

Your hearts should both have broken then : 
The dream is o'er, your doom is cast, — 

You '11 never meet on earth again ! 
Alas for him, who hears her cries ! 

Still half-way down the steep he stands, 





\J^^ 



Watching with fix'd and feverish eyes 

The glimmer of those burning brands, 
That down the rocks, with mournful ray, 
Light all he loves on earth away ! 
Hopeless as they who far at sea 

By the cold moon have just consign'd 
The corse of one, loved tenderly. 

To the bleak flood they leave behind ; 
And on the deck still lingering stay, 
And long look back, with sad delay. 
To watch the moonlight on the wave. 
That ripples o'er that cheerless grave. 

But see ! he starts, — what heard he then? 
That dreadful shout ! — across the glen 
From the land side it comes, and loud 
Rings through the chasm ; as if the crowd 
Of fearful things that haunt that dell, 
Its Gholes and Dives and shapes of hell, 
Had all in one dread howl broke out, 
So loud, so terrible that shout ! 
"They come, — the Moslems come ! " he cries. 
His proud soul mounting to his eyes : 
" Now, spirits of the brave, who roam 
Enfranchised through yon starry dome, 
Rejoice, — for souls of kindred fire 



Are on the wing to join your choir ! " 
He said ; and, hght as bridegrooms bound 

To their young loves, reclimb'd the steep 
And gain'd the shrine : his chiefs stood round, — 

Their swords, as with instinctive leap, 
Together, at that cry accursed. 
Had from their sheaths, like sunbeams, burst 
And hark ! — again, again it rings ; 
Near and more near its echoings 
Peal through the chasm ; — oh ! who that then 
Had seen those listening warrior men, 
With their swords grasp'd, their eyes of flame 
Turn'd on their Chief, could doubt the shame, 
Th' indignant shame, with which they thrill 
To hear those shouts and yet stand still? 
He read their thoughts, — they were his own, — 

" What ! while our arms can wield these blades, 
Shall we die tamely, die alone, — 

Without one victim to our shades, 
One Moslem heart, where, buried deep. 
The sabre from its toil may sleep ? 
No — God of Iran's burning skies ! 
Thou scorn'st th' inglorious sacrifice. 
No — though of all earth's hopes bereft. 
Life, swords, A and vengeance still are left. 

?^sv yon valley's reeking caves 

the awe-struck minds of men 
shudder when their slaves 
the Gheber's bloody glen. 




( 2I6 ) 

Follow, brave hearts ! this pile remains ' 
Our refuge still from life and chains; 
But his the best, the holiest bed. 
Who sinks entomb'd in Moslem dead ! " 

Down the precipitous rocks they sprung, 
While vigor, more than human, strung 
Each arm and heart. Th' exulting foe 
Still through the dark defiles below, 
Track'd by his torches' lurid fire, 

Wound slow, as through Golconda's vale 
The mighty serpent, in his ire. 

Glides on with glittering, deadly trail. 
No torch the Ghebers need, — so well 
They know each mystery of the dell, 

So oft have, in their wanderings, 
Cross'd the wild race that round them dwell, 
The very tigers from their delves 

Look out, and let them pass, as things 
Untamed and fearless like themselves ! 

There was a deep ravine, that lay 

Yet darkling in the Moslem's way, — 

Fit spot to make invaders rue 

The many fallen before the few. 

The torrents from that morning's sky 

Had fill'd the narrow chasm breast-high. 

And on each side, aloft and wild. 

Huge cliff's and toppling crags were piled, — 

The guards with which young Freedom lines 

The pathways to her mountain shrines. 

Here, at this pass, the scanty band 

Of Iran's last avengers stand ; 



( 217 ) 

Here wait, in silence like the dead, 
And listen for the Moslems' tread 
So anxiously, the carrion bird 
Above them flaps his wings unheard ! 

They come, — that plunge into the water 
Gives signal for the work of slaughter. 
Now, Ghebers, now, — if e'er your blades 

Had point or prowess, prove them now ! 
Woe to the file that foremost wades ! 

They come, — a falchion greets each brow, 
And as they tumble, trunk on trunk. 
Beneath the gory waters sunk, 
Still o'er their drowning bodies press 
New victims quick and numberless; 
Till scarce an arm in Hafed's band, 

So fierce their toil, hath power to stir, 
But listless from each crimson hand 

The sword hangs, clogg'd with massacre. 
Never was horde of tyrants met 
With bloodier welcome, — never yet 
To patriot vengeance hath the sword 
More terrible libations pour'd ! 
All up the dreary, long ravine, 
By the red, murky glimmer seen 
Of half-quench'd brands, that o'er the flood 
Lie scatter'd round and burn in blood, 
What ruin glares ! what carnage swims ! 
Heads, blazing turbans, quivering limbs, 
Lost swords that, dropp'd from many a hand, 
In that thick pool of slaughter stand, — 
Wretches who, wading, half on fire 

From the toss'd brands that round them fly. 



t"wiXt^«g<J7jH}d ^ahl^J^l^hr^e^^^^i^J^^^ 



-% 



=Tl 



. ^ ^__^ , o—^-- ~. those that di^S^-:; 

.-T-Smlv wotfdSl^i^hvlth themrsmotlier'd o'^r' 
-■^ " I$i their -dead brethren's g.ushiQg ge)re4\^;^v\ 

^ }lit/Ogi%>u/'dreds^::^on^^r^^^, ^,,^ 

-ftlUptlll liiirirlrprl« thnii';anrK nrnrp ^nrrpprt^ .^^ 



oYintless as towards some flame at night 
e HQrthjB d^k nisects wing t^eir |li 
uenth or perish in its hght, 
To tyis terrific s'Dot they pour, 
s:$^;',t>ridgE4^it^l'^oslem bodies 
fit bears alpft their shppery tread 
C;^)Ajid o'er^the dying and.thc dea- 
-• Tprena^Ed'Qu's Causeway ! — oh'th' 
'Then, hapless Ghcbc^rs, theh/;.alas 
^ What hppe^was lei^^^ar yd' 
whose yet wa'pii pile^.-sa/ciyi: 
'Is'smok'log in their 'vengeful e 



^C?who^^ swords how keen, h'i 
And-burn with shame to fiiid 
Crus|^|™Kvn by ftiat vast mult 
Some^Mfeld theirWraveS' where 
While ^l^^e wifii'hardief stru~^ 
And still fought on by flaf( 
Who, fronting to the foe, 
Towards the high towers 
.^^^I^B^Et:Jion swept away 
-•^0By sudden swell of Jord 
^^^rFrom-the wM-covert whe 
.^s=^ ^ong b^^ with th' o*^rwh'elmi 
So fought he back with fi 
And kef)|^,bg|h, fpe^ and 



But whither now 




^heir prey escaped,^. — guide, torches gone, — 



By torrent-beds and labyrinths cross'd, 
The scatter'd crowd rush blindly on. 
*' Curse on those tardy lights that wind," 
They panting cry, " so far behind, — 
Oh for a bloodhound's precious scent, 
To track the way the Gheber went ! " 
Vain wish, — confusedly along 
They rush, more desperate as more wrong; 
Till, wilder'd by_^e far-off lights 




( 220 ) 

Yet glittering up those gloomy heights, 
Their footing, mazed and lost, they miss, 
And down the darkling precipice 
Are dash'd into the deep abyss, 
Or midway hang, impaled on rocks, 
A banquet, yet ahve, for flocks 
Of ravening vultures, while the deli 
Re-echoes with each horrible yell. 

Those sounds — the last to vengeance dear, 
That e'er shall ring in Hafed's ear — 
Now reach'd him, as aloft, alone, 
Upon the steep way, breathless thrown. 
He lay beside his reeking blade, 

Resign'd, as if life's task were o'er, 
Its last blood-offering amply paid, 

And Iran's self could claim no more. 
One only thought, one lingering beam, 
Now broke across his dizzy dream 
Of pain and weariness, — 'twas she. 

His heart's pure planet, shining yet 
Above the waste of memory 

When all life's other lights were set. 
And never to his mind before 
Her image such enchantment wore. 
It seem'd as if each thought that stain'd. 

Each fear that chill'd, their loves was past, 
And not one cloud of earth remain'd 

Between him and her glory cast; — 
As if to charms before so bright. 

New grace from other worlds was given, 
And his soul saw her by the light 

Now breaking o'er itself from heaven ! 



( 221 ) 

A voice spoke near him, — 't was the tone 

Of a loved friend, the only one 

Of all his warriors, left with life 

From that short night's tremendous strife : 

" And must we then, my Chief, die here ! — 

Foes round us, and the shrine so near ! " 

These words have roused the last remains 

Of life within him — " What ! not yet 
Beyond the reach of Moslem chains ! " 

The thought could e'en make Death forget 
His icy bondage, — with a bound 
He springs, all bleeding, from the ground. 
And grasps his comrade's arm, now grown 
E'en feebler, heavier, than his own, 
And up the painful pathway leads, 
Death gaining on each step he treads. 
Speed them, thou God, who heard'st their vow ! 
They mount — they bleed — oh ! save them now ! • 
The crags are red they 've clamber'd o'er. 
The rock-weed 's dripping with their gore — 
Thy blade, too, Hafed, false at length. 
Now breaks beneath thy tottering strength — 
Haste, haste, — the voices of the Foe 
Come near and nearer from below — 
One effort more — thank Heaven! 'tis past; 
They 've gain'd the topmost steep at last. 
And now they touch the temple's walls. 

Now Hafed sees the Fire divine — 
When, lo ! his weak, worn comrade falls 

Dead on the threshold of the shrine. 
■" Alas, brave soul, too quickly fled ! 




And must I leave thee \vi 
here, 
The sport of every ruffian's tiead, 

The mark for every coward's spel 
No, by yon ahar's sacred beams ! 
He cries, and with a strength that seems 
Not of this world, uplifts the frame 
Of the fallen chief, and towards the flame 
Bears him along; — with death-damp hand 

The corpse upon the pyre he lays, 
Then lights the consecrated brand, 

And fires the pile, whose sudden blaze 
Like lightning bursts o'er Oman's Sea. 
" Now, Freedom's God ! I come to Thee,"' 
The youth exclaims, and with a smile 
Of triumph vaulting on the pile, 
In that last effort, ere the fires 
Have harm'd one glorious limb, expires ! 



'i^a^ 



What shriek was that on Oman's tide? 

It came from yonder drifting bark, 
That just has caught upon her side 

The death-light, and again is dark. 
It is the boat — ah, why delay'd? — 
That bears the wretched Moslem maid'; 
Confided to the watchful care 

Of a small veteran band, with whom 
Their generous Chieftain would not share 

The secret of his final doom; 




But hoped when Hinda, safe and free, 

Was render'd to her father's eyes, 
Their pardon, full and prompt, would be 

The ransom of so dear a prize. 
Unconscious, thus, of Hafed's fate. 
And proud to guard their beauteous freight, 
Scarce had they clear'd the surfy waves 
That foam around those frightful caves, 
When the curst war-whoops, known so well, 
Came echoing from the distant dell. 
Sudden each oar, upheld and still, 

Hung dripping o'er the vessel's side. 
And, driving at the current's will. 

They rock'd along the whispering tide, 




While every eye, in mute dismay. 

Was toward that fatal mountain turn'd. 

Where the dim altar's quivering ray 
As yet all lone and tranquil burn'd. 

Oh ! 't is not, Hinda, in the power 
Of fancy's most terrific touch 

To paint thy pangs in that dread hour, — 
Thy silent agony : 't was such 

As those who feel could paint too well, 

But none e'er felt and lived to tell ! 



( 224 ) 

'T was not alone the dreary state 

Of a lorn spirit, crush'd by fate, 

When, though no more remains to dread, 

The panic chill will not depart; 
When, though the inmate Hope be dead, 

Her ghost still haunts the mouldering heart. 
No — pleasures, hopes, affections gone, 
The wretch may bear, and yet live on ; 
Like things within the cold rock found 
Alive when all 's congeal'd around. 
But there 's a blank repose in this, 
A calm stagnation, that were bliss 
To the keen, burning, harrowing pain, 
Now felt through all thy breast and brain, — 
That spasm of terror, mute, intense, — 
That breathless, agonized suspense, 
From whose hot throb, whose deadly aching, 
The heart hath no relief but breaking ! 

Calm is the wave, — heaven's brilliant lights 

Reflected dance beneath the prow. 
Time was when, on such lovely nights, 

She who is there, so desolate now, ! 
Could sit all cheerful, though alone, 

And ask no happier joy than seeing 

The starlight o'er the waters thrown ; j 

No joy but that to make her blest, .< 

And the fresh, buoyant sense of being j 

That bounds in youth's yet careless breast, — ; 

Itself a star, not borrowing light, j 

But in its own glad essence bright. ■; 

How different now ! — but, hark ! again i 

The yell of havoc rings — brave men ! ! 

In vain with beating hearts ye stand | 



( 225 ) 

On the bark's edge ; in vain each hand 
Half draws the falchion from its sheath : 

All 's o'er, — in rust your blades may lie ; — 
He at whose word they've scattered death 

E'en now, this night himself must die ! 
Well may ye look to yon dim tower, 

And ask, and wondering guess what means 
The battle-cry at this dead hour. 

Ah ! she could tell you, — she who leans 
Unheeded there, pale, sunk, aghast. 
With brow against the dew-cold mast : 

Too well she knows, — her more than life. 
Her soul's first idol and its last. 

Lies bleeding in that murderous strife. 

But see — what moves upon the height? 
Some signal ! — 't is a torch's light. 

What bodes its solitary glare ? 
In gasping silence towards the shrine 
All eyes are turn'd, — thine, Hinda, thine 

Fix their last failing life-beams there. 
'T was but a moment, — fierce and high 
The death-pile blazed into the sky, 
And far away o'er rock and flood 

Its melancholy radiance sent; 
While Hafed, like a vision, stood 
Reveal'd before the burning pyre, 
Tall, shadowy, like a Spirit of Fire 

Shrined in its own grand element ! 
■" 'T is he ! " the shuddering maid exclaims, — 

But, while she speaks, he 's seen no more ; 
High burst in air the funeral flames, 

And Iran's hopes and hers are o'er ! 



One wild, heart-broken shriek she gave ; 
Then sprung as if to reach that blaze, 
Where still she fix'd her dying gaze, 
And gazing sunk into the wave, — 
Deep, deep, — where never care or pain 
Shall reach her innocent heart again ! 



Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter ! 

(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.) 
No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water 

More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee. 



'^V'.'Sf 






r.-^i 




Oh ! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing, 
How light was thy heart till love's witchery came, 

Like the wind of the south o'er a summer lute blowing, 
And hush'd all its music, and wither'd its frame ! 

But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands, 
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom 

Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, 
With nought but the sea-star to light up her tomb. 



And still, when the merry date-season is burning, 
And calls to the palm groves the young and the old, 

The happiest there, from their pastime returning 
At sunset, will weep when thy story is told. 



The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses 
Her dark flowing hair for some festival day, 

Will think of thy fate, till, neglecting her tresses. 
She mournfully turns from the mirror away. 

Nor shall Iran, beloved of her hero ! forget thee, — 
Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start, 

Close, close by the side of that hero she '11 set thee, 
Embalm'd in the innermost shrine of her heart 

Farewell — be it ours to embellish thy pillow 

With everything beauteous that grows in the deep ; 

Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow 
Shall sweeten thy bed and illumine thy sleep. 

Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber 
That ever the sorrowing sea-bird has wept ; 

With many a shell, in whose hollow-wreathed chamber 
We, Peris of Ocean, by moonlight have slept. 

We '11 dive where the gardens of coral lie darkling, 
And plant all the rosiest stems at thy head ; 

We '11 seek where the sands of the Caspian are 
sparkling. 
And gather their gold to strew over thy bed. 



Farewell — farewell — until pity's sweet fountain 
Is lost in the hearts of the fair and the brave, 
They'll weep for the Chieftain who died on that 
mountain, 
They '11 weep for the Maiden who sleeps in this 
wave. 




( 228 ) 

The singular placidity with which Fadladeen had 
listened, during the latter part of this obnoxious 
story, surprised the Princess and Feramorz exceed- 
ingly, and even inclined towards him the hearts of 
these unsuspicious young persons, who little knew 
the source of a complacency so marvellous. The 
truth was, he had been organizing, for the last few 
days, a most notable plan of persecution against the. 
Poet, in consequence of some passages that had fallen 
from him on the second evening of recital, — which 
appeared to this worthy Chamberlain to contain lan- 
guage and principles for which nothing short of the 
summary criticism of the chabuk would be advisable. 
It was his intention, therefore, immediately on their 
arrival at Cashmere, to give information to the King 
of Bucharia of the very dangerous sentiments of his 
minstrel ; and if, unfortunately, that monarch did not 
act with suitable vigor on the occasion (that is, if he 
did not give the chabuk to Feramorz and a place to 
Fadladeen), there would be an end, he feared, of all 
legitimate government in Bucharia. He could not 
help, however, auguring better both for himself and 
the cause of potentates in general; and it was the 
pleasure arising from these mingled anticipations that 
diffused such unusual satisfaction through his features. 



( 229 ) 

and made his eyes shine out, like poppies of the 
desert, over the wide and Ufeless wilderness of that 
countenance. 

Having decided upon the Poet's chastisement in 
this manner, he thought it but humanity to spare him 
the minor tortures of criticism. Accordingly, when 
they assembled next evening in the pavilion, and 
Lalla Rookh expected to see all the beauties of her 
bard melt away, one by one, in the acidity of criti- 
cism, like pearls in the cup of the Egyptian queen, 
he agreeably disappointed her by merely saying, 
with an ironical smile, that the merits of such a poem 
deserved to be tried at a much higher tribunal; and 
then suddenly passing off into a panegyric upon all 
Mussulman sovereigns, more particularly his august 
and imperial master, Aurungzebe, — the wisest and 
best of the descendants of Timur, — who, among 
other great things he had done for mankind, had 
given to him (Fadladeen) the profitable posts of 
Betel-carrier and Taster of Sherbets to the Emperor, 
Chief Holder of the Girdle of Beautiful Forms, and 
Grand Nazir, or Chamberlain of the Haram. 

They were now not far from that forbidden river 
beyond which no pure Hindoo can pass, and were 
reposing for a time in the rich valley of Hussun 
Abdaul, which had always been a favorite resting- 




place of the Emperors in 
their annual migrations to Cash- 
mere. Here often had the Light 
of the Faith, Jehan-Guire, wan- 
dered with his beloved and beau- 
tiful Nourmahal ; and here would 
Lalla Rookh have been happy 
to remain forever, giving up the 
throne of Bucharia and the world 
for Feramorz and love in this 
sweet lonely valley. The time 
was now fast approaching when 
she must see him no longer, or 
see him with eyes whose every 
look belonged to another; and 
there was a melancholy precious- 
ness in these last moments, which 
made her heart cling to them as it 
would to life. During the latter 
part of the journey, indeed, she had sunk into a deep 
sadness, from which nothing but the presence of the 
young minstrel could awake her. Like those lamps in 
tombs, which only light up when the air is admitted, 
it was only at his approach that her eyes became smil- 
ing and animated. But here, in this dear valley, every 
moment was an age of pleasure ; she saw him all day, 
and was, therefore, all day happy, — resembling, she 
often thought, the people of Zinge, who attribute the 
unfading cheerfulness they enjoy to one genial star 
that rises nightly over their heads. 




The whole party, 
indeed, seemed in their 
liveliest mood during the few ' 
days they passed in this delight- 
ful solitude. The young attendants 
of the Princess, who were here allowed a freer 
range than they could safely be indulged with in a 
less sequestered place, ran wild among the gardens, and 
bounded through the meadows lightly as young roes over the 
aromatic plains of Tibet. While Fadladeen, besides the spiritual 
comfort he derived from a pilgrimage to the tomb of the saint 
from whom the valley is named, had opportunities of gratifying, 
in a small way, his taste for victims, by putting to death some 
hundreds of those unfortunate little lizards, which all pious Mus- 
sulmans make it a point to kill, — taking for granted, that the 
manner in which the creature hangs its head is meant as a mimicry 
of the attitude in which the faithful say their prayers ! 



( 232 ) 

About two miles from Hussun Abdaul were those 
Royal Gardens, which had grown beautiful under the 
care of so many lovely eyes, and were beautiful still, 
though those eyes could see them no longer. This 
place, with its flowers and its holy silence, inter- 
rupted only by the dipping of the wings of birds in 
its marble basins filled with the pure water of those 
hills, was to Lalla Rookh all that her heart could 
fancy of fragrance, coolness, and almost heavenly 
tranquillity, — as the Prophet said of Damascus, " it 
was too delicious ; " and here, in listening to the 
sweet voice of Feramorz, or reading in his eyes what 
he never dared to tell her, the most exquisite mo- 
ments of her whole life were passed. One evening, 
when they had been talking of the Sultana Nour- 
mahal, — the Light of the Haram, who had so often 
wandered among these flowers, and fed with her 
own hands, in those marble basins, the small shining 
fishes of which she was so fond, — the youth, in or- 
der to delay the moment of separation, proposed to 
recite a short story, or rather rhapsody, of which this 
adored Sultana was the heroine. It related, he said, 
to the reconcilement of a sort of lovers' quarrel, 
which took place between her and the Emperor dur- 
ing a Feast of Roses at Cashmere ; and would remind 
the Princess of that difference between Haroun-al- 
Raschid and his fair mistress Marida, which was so 



( 233 ) 

happily made up by the soft strains of the musician 
Moussali. As the story was chiefly to be told in 
song, and Feramorz had unluckily forgotten his own 
lute in the valley, he borrowed the vina of Lalla 
Rookh's little Persian slave, and thus began : — 




Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, 
^With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave, 
temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear 
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave ! 





Or to see it by- 
moonlight, — when 
mellowly shines 
The light o'er its 
palaces, gardens, 
and shrines ; 
When the waterfalls 
gleam like a quick 
fall of stars, 
And the nightingale's hymn 
from the Isle of Chenars 
Is broken by laughs and light echoes 
of feet 
From the cool, shining walks where the young 
people meet. 
Or at morn, — when the magic of daylight awakes 
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks, 
Hills, cupolas, fountains, call'd forth every one 
Out of darkness, as they were just born of the sun ; 
When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day, 
From his haram of night-flowers stealing away, 
And the wind, full of wantonness, woos like a lover 
The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over ; 
When the East is as warm as the light of first hopes, 

And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurl'd. 

Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes, 

Sublime, from that Valley of bliss to the world ! 



( 236 ) 

But never yet, by night or day, 
In dew of spring or summer's ray. 
Did the sweet Valley shine so gay 
As now it shines, — aU love and light. 
Visions by day and feasts by night ! 
A happier smile illumes each brow, 

With quicker spread each heart uncloses, 
And all is ecstasy; for now 

The Valley holds its Feast of Roses, — 
That joyous time, when pleasures pour 
Profusely round, and in their shower 
Hearts open, like the season's rose. 

The floweret of a hundred leaves. 
Expanding while the dew-fall flows, 

And every leaf its balm receives ! 

'T was when the hour of evening came 

Upon the Lake, serene and cool ; 
When Day had hid his sultry flame 
Behind the palms of Baramoule; 
When maids began to lift their heads, 
Refresh'd, from their embroider'd beds, 
Where they had slept the sun away. 
And waked to moonlight and to play. 
All were abroad, — the busiest hive 
On Bela's hills is less alive 
When saffron beds are full in flower. 
Than look'd the Valley in that hour. 
A thousand restless torches play'd 
Through every grove and island shade ; 
A thousand sparkling lamps were set 
On every dome and minaret ; 
And fields and pathways, far and near, 



( 237 ) 

Were lighted by a blaze so clear, 
That you could see, in wandering round, 
The smallest rose-leaf on the ground. 
Yet did the maids and matrons leave 
Their veils at home, that brilliant eve ; 
And there were glancing eyes about, 
And cheeks, that would not dare shine out 
In open day, but thought they might 
Look lovely then, because 'twas night! 
And all were free, and wandering. 

And all exclaim'd to all they met 
That never did the summer bring 

So gay a Feast of Roses yet ; — 
The moon had never shed a light 

So clear as that which bless'd them there ; 
The roses ne'er shone half so bright, 

Nor they themselves look'd half so fair. 

And what a wilderness of flowers ! 

It seem'd as though from all the bowers 

And fairest fields of all the year 

The mingled spoil were scatter'd here. 

The lake too like a garden breathes, 

With the rich buds that o'er it lie, — 
As if a shower of fairy wreaths 

Had fallen upon it from the sky ! 
And then the sounds of joy, — the beat 
Of tabors and of dancing feet ; — 
The minaret-crier's chant of glee 
Sung from his lighted gallery, 
And answer'd by a ziraleet 
From neighboring haram, wild and sweet; — 
'The merry laughter, echoing 



From gardens where the silken swing 
Wafts some delighted girl above 
The top leaves of the orange grove ; 
Or from those infant groups that play 
Among the tents that line the way, 
Flinging, unawed by slave or mother, 
Handfuls of roses at each other ! — 
And the sounds from the Lake, — the low whisp'ring 
in boats, 
As they shoot through the moonlight ; — the dip- 
ping of oars, 
And the wild, airy warbling that everywhere floats. 
Through the groves round the islands, as if all the 
shores. 
Like those of Kathay, utter'd music, and gave 
An answer in song to the kiss of each wave ! 
But the gentlest of all are those sounds, full of feeling. 
That soft from the lute of some lover are stealing, — 
Some lover who knows all the heart-touching power 
Of a lute and a sigh in this magical hour. 
Oh ! best of delights as it everywhere is 
To be near the loved One, — what a rapture is his 
Who in moonlight and music thus sweetly may glide 
O'er the Lake of Cashmere with that One by his side ! 
If woman can make the worst wilderness dear, 
Think, think what a heaven she must make of Cash- 
mere ! 

So felt the magnificent Son of Acbar, 

When from power and pomp and the trophies of war 

He flew to that Valley, forgetting them all 

With the Light of the Haram, his young Nourmahal ; 




( 240 ) 

There 's a beauty, forever unchangingly bright, 
Like the long, sunny lapse of a summer day's light, 
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender, 
Till love falls asleep in the sameness of splendor: 
This was not the beauty — oh ! nothing like this. 
That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss; 
But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays 
Like the light upon autumn's soft shadowy days. 
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies 
From the lips to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes, 
Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams. 
Like the glimpses a saint has of heaven in his 

dreams ! 
When pensive, it seem'd as if that very grace. 
That charm of all others, was born with her face ; 
And when angry, — for e'en in the tranquillest climes 
Light breezes will rufifle the flowers sometimes, — 
The short, passing anger but seem'd to awaken 
New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when 

shaken. 
If tenderness touch'd her, the dark of her eye 
At once took a darker, a heavenlier dye, 
From the depth of whose shadow, like holy revealings 
From innermost shrines, came the light of her 

feelings ! 
Then her mirth — -oh! 'twas sportive as ever took 

wing 
From the heart with a burst, like the wild bird in 

spring; — 
Illumed by a wit that would fascinate sages. 
Yet playful as Peris just loosed from their cages. 



( 241 ) 

While her laugh, full of life, without any control 
But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her 

soul; 
And where it most sparkled no glance could discover, 
In lip, cheek, or eyes, for she brighten'd all over, — 
Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon, 
When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun. 
Such, such were the peerless enchantments that gave 
Nourmahal the proud Lord of the East for her slave ; 
And though bright was his haram, — a living parterre 
Of the flowers of this planet, — though treasures were 

there. 
For which Soliman's self might have given all the 

store 
That the navy from Ophir e'er wing'd to his shore, — 
Yet dim before her were the smiles of them all. 
And the Light of his Haram was young Nourmahal ! 

But where is she now, this night of joy, 
When bliss is every heart's employ? 

When all around her is so bright, 
So like the visions of a trance, 
That one might think, who came by chance 

Into the vale this happy night. 

He saw that City of Delight 
In Fairy-land, whose streets and towers 
Are made of gems and light and flowers ! 
Where is the loved Sultana? where, 
When mirth brings out the young and fair, 
Does she, the fairest, hide her brow. 
In melancholy stillness now? 





<i« 



Alas, how light a cause may move 

Dissension between hearts that love ! 

ff,. Hearts that the world in vain had tried, 

And sorrow but more closely tied ; 

That stood the storm, when waves were 

rough, 

■';/ --- :^Yet in a sunny hour fall off, 

? .fcike ships that have gone down at sea, 
r' 
' When heaven was all tranquillity ! 

^^^> A something, light as air, — a look, 

A word unkind or wrongly taken, — 

Oh ! love, that tempests never shook, 

A breath, a touch, like this hath shaken. 

And ruder words will soon rush in 

To spread the breach that words begin ; 

And eyes forget the gentle ray 

They wore in courtship's smiling day ; 

And voices lose their tone that shed ,.,if„ 

A tenderness round all they said, 

Till fast declining, one by one, 

The sweetnesses of love are gone. 

And hearts so lately mingled seem 

ike broken clouds, — or like the stream 



i,V 



1 



£/»'(! 



( 244 ) 

For even an hour, a minute's flight, 
Will rob the plumes of half their light. 
Like that celestial bird — whose nest 

Is found beneath far eastern skies — 
Whose wings, though radiant when at rest, * 

Lose all the glory when he flies ! 

Some difference, of this dangerous kind, — 

By which, though light, the links that bind 

The fondest hearts may soon be riven ; 

Some shadow in love's summer heaven, 

Which, though a fleecy speck at first, 

May yet in awful thunder burst; — 

Such cloud it is, that hangs over 

The heart of the imperial lover, 

And far hath banish'd from his sight 

His Nourmahal, his Haram's Light ! 

Hence is it, on this happy night. 

When Pleasure through the fields and groves 

Has let loose all her world of loves, 

And every heart has found its own, — 

He wanders joyless and alone. 

And weary as that bird of Thrace, 

Whose pinion knows no resting-place. 

In vain the loveliest cheeks and eyes 

This Eden of the earth supplies 

Come crowding round, — the cheeks are pale, 
The eyes are dim ; though rich the spot 
With every fiower this earth has got. 

What is it to the nightingale. 
If there his darling rose is not? 
In vain the Valley's smiling throng 
Worship him, as he moves along; 
He heeds them not, — one smile of hers 
Is worth a world of worshippers. 



( 245 ) 

'They but the star's adorers are, 
She is the heaven that lights the star ! 

Hence is it too that Nourmahal, 

Amid the luxuries of this hour, 
Par from the joyous festival, 

Sits in her own sequester'd bower, 
"With no one near, to soothe or aid, 
But that inspired and wondrous maid, 
Namouna, the enchantress, — one. 
O'er whom his race the golden sun 
For unremember'd years has run. 
Yet never saw her blooming brow 
Younger or fairer than 't is now. 
Nay, rather, as the west-wind's sigh 
Freshens the flower it passes by. 
Time's wing but seem'd, in stealing o'er, 
To leave her lovelier than before. 
Yet on her smiles a sadness hung. 
And when, as oft, she spoke or sung 
Of other worlds, there came a light 
From her dark eyes so strangely bright, 
That all believed nor man nor earth 
Were conscious of Namouna's birth ! 

All spells and talismans she knew, 

From the great Mantra, which around 
The Air's sublimer spirits drew. 

To the gold gems of Afric, bound 
Upon the wandering Arab's arm, 
To keep him from the Siltim's harm. 
And she had pledged her powerful art, 
Pledged it with all the zeal and heart 
Of one who knew, though high her sphere, 
What 't was to lose a love so dear, 




As Genii of the Sun behold, 
At evening, from their tents of gold, 
Upon th' horizon, — where they play 
Till twilight comes, and, ray by ray, 
Their sunny mansions melt away 1 
i^iiim ^°^' *°°' ^ chaplet might be wreathed 

^ Of buds o'er which the moon has breathed, 
' Which worn by her, whose love has stray'd, 
Might bring some Peri from the skies, 
Some sprite, whose very soul is made 

Of flowerets' breaths and lovers' sighs, 
And who might tell — " 

" For me, for me," 
Cried Nourmahal impatiently, — 
" Oh ! twine that wreath for me to-night ! " 
Then rapidly, with foot as light 
As the young musk-roe's, out she flew 
"To cull each shining leaf that grew 
Beneath the moonlight's hallowing beams 
For this enchanted Wreath of Dreams. 
Anemones and Seas of Gold, 

And new-blown lilies of the river, 
And those sweet flowerets, that un^rold 

Their buds on Camadeva's quiver ; 
The tuberose, with her silvery ligj^, 

That in the gardens of Malay A 
Is call'd the Mistress of the Night, 
-So like a bride, scented and bright, 





// 



C 248 ) 

She comes out when the sun 's away ; 
Amaranths, such as crown the maids 
That wander through Zamara's shades ; 
And the white moon-flower, as it shows 
On Serendib's high crags to those 
Who near the isle at evening sail, 
Scenting her clove-trees in the gale ; — 
In short, all flowerets and all plants, 

From the divine Amrita tree, 
That blesses heaven's inhabitants 

With fruits of immortality, 
Down to the bazil tuft, that waves 
Its fragrant blossom over graves, 

And to the humble rosemary, 
Whose sweets so thanklessly are shed 
To scent the desert and the dead, — 
All in that garden bloom, and all 
Are gather'd by young Nourmahal, 
Who heaps her baskets with the flowers 

And leaves, till they can hold no more ; 
Then to Namouna flies, and showers 

Upon her lap the shining store. 

With what delight th' Enchantress views 

So many buds, bathed with the dews 

And beams of that bless'd hour ! — her glance 

Spoke something, past all mortal pleasures. 
As, in a kind of holy trance, 

She hung above those fragrant treasures. 
Bending to drink their balmy airs. 
As if she mix'd her soul with theirs. 
And 'twas, indeed, the perfume shed 
From flowers and scented flame that fed 



( 249 ) 

Her charmed life, — for none had e'er 
Beheld her taste of mortal fare, 
Nor ever in aught earthly dip, 
But the morn's dew, her roseate lip. 
Fill'd with the cool, inspiring smell, 
Th' Enchantress now begins her spell. 
Thus singing, as she winds and weaves 
In mystic form the glittering leaves : — 

I know where the winged visions dwell 

That around the night-bed play; 
I know each herb and floweret's bell, 
Where they hide their wings by day. 
Then hasten we, maid, 
To twine our braid, 
To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade. 

The image of love, that nightly flies 

To visit the bashful maid, 
Steals from the jasmine flower, that sighs 

Its soul, like her, in the shade. 
The hope, in dreams, of a happier hour 

That alights on misery's brow. 
Springs out of the silvery almond-flower 

That blooms on a leafless bough. 
Then hasten we, maid. 
To twine our braid, 
To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade. 

The visions that oft to worldly eyes 

The glitter of mines unfold. 
Inhabit the mountain-herb, that dyes 

The tooth of the fawn like gold. 



The phantom shapes — oh, touch not them - 

That appall the murderer's sight, 
Lurk in the fleshly mandrake's stem, 
That shrieks, when torn at night ! 
Then hasten we, maid. 
To twine our braid. 
To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade. 

The dream of the injured patient mind, 

That smiles at the wrongs of men. 
Is found in the bruised and wounded rind 
Of the cinnamon, sweetest then ! 
Then hasten we, maid, 
To twine our braid. 
To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade. 



No sooner was the flowery crown 

Placed on her head, than sleep came down, 

Gently as nights of summer fall, 

Upon the lids of Nourmahal ; 

And suddenly a tuneful breeze, 

As full of small rich harmonies 

As ever wind that o'er the tents 

Of Azab blew, was full of scents. 

Steals on her ear, and floats and swells. 

Like the first air of morning creeping 
Lito those wreathy, Red-Sea shells, 

Where Love himself, of old, lay sleeping; 
And now a spirit form'd, 't would seem. 

Of music and of 
light, so fair. 





So brilliantly his features beam, 
And such a sound is in the air 
Of sweetness, when he waves his wings, 
Hovers around her, and thus sings : — 

From Chindara's warbling fount I come, 

Call'd by that moonlight garland's spell ; 
From Chindara's fount, my fairy home. 

Where in music, morn and night, I dwell. 
Where lutes in the air are heard about. 

And voices are singing the whole day long 
And every sigh the heart breathes out 
Is turn'd, as it leaves the lips, to song ! 
Hither I come 
From my fairy home ; 
And if there 's a magic in music strain, 
I swear by the breath 
Of that moonlight wreath. 
Thy lover shall sigh at thy feet again ! 



( 252 ) 

For mine is the lay that Hghtly floats, 
And mine are the murmuring, dying notes, 
That fall as soft as snow on the sea, 
And melt in the heart as instantly ! 

And the passionate strain that, deeply going, 
Refines the bosom it trembles through, 

As the musk-wind, over the water blowing. 
Ruffles the waves, but sweetens it too ! 

Mine is the charm whose mystic sway 
The Spirits of past Delight obey ; 
Let but the tuneful talisman sound. 
And they come, like Genii, hovering round. 

And mine is the gentle song that bears 
From soul to soul the wishes of love. 

As a bird that wafts through genial airs 
The cinnamon seed from grove to grove. 

'T is I that mingle in one sweet measure 
The past, the present, and future of pleasure ; 
When memory links the tone that is gone 

With the blissful tone that 's still in the ear. 
And hope from a heavenly note flies on 

To a note more heavenly still that is near ! 

The warrior's heart, when touch'd by me, 
Can as downy soft and as yielding be 
As his own white plume, that high amid death 
Through the field has shone, yet moves with a 
breath. 



( 253 ) 

And, oh, how the eyes of beauty glisten, 

When music has reach'd her inmost soul. 
Like the silent stars, that wink and listen 
While heaven's eternal melodies roll ! 

So hither I come 

From my fairy home, 
And if there 's a magic in music strain, 

I swear by the breath 

Of that moonlight wreath. 
Thy lover shall sigh at thy feet again. 



'T is dawn, — at least that earlier dawn 
Whose glimpses are again withdrawn, 
As if the morn had waked, and then 
Shut close her lids of light again. 

And Nourmahal is up, and trying 

The wonders of her lute, whose strings — 

Oh, bliss ! — now murmur like the sighing 
From that ambrosial spirit's wings ! 

And then, her voice, — 'tis more than human, 
Never, till now, had it been given 

To lips of any mortal woman 

To utter notes so fresh from heaven ; 




Sweet as the breath of angel sighs, 
When angel sighs are most 
divine, — 
" Oh ! let it last till night," she cries, 
" And he is more than ever mine." 
And hourly she renews the lay. 

So fearful lest its heavenly sweetness 
Should, ere the evening, fade away, — 

For things so heavenly have such fleetness ! 
But, far from fading, it but grows 
Richer, diviner, as it flows ; 
Till rapt she dwells on every string. 

And pours again each sound along. 
Like Echo, lost and languishing 

In love with her own wondrous song. 

That evening (trusting that his soul 

Might be from haunting love released 
By mirth, by music, and the bowl) 

Th' imperial Selim held a feast 
In his magnificent Shalimar; 





In whose saloons, when the first star 
Of evening o'er the waters trembled, 
The Valley's loveliest all assembled, — 
All the bright creatures that, like dreams, 
"Glide through its foliage, and drink beams 
•Of beauty from its founts and streams ; 
And all those wandering minstrel-maids 
Who leave — how ca7i they leave ? — the shades 
Of that dear Valley, and are found 
Singing in gardens of the south 




( 256 ) 

Those songs, that ne'er so sweetly sound 
As from a young Cashmerian's mouth. 

There too the haram's inmates smile ; — 

Maids from the west, with sun-bright hair, 
And from the Garden of the Nile, 

Delicate as the roses there ; 
Daughters of Love from Cyprus' rocks. 
With Paphian diamonds in their locks ; 
Light Peri forms, such as there are 
On the gold meads of Candahar ; 
And they before whose sleepy eyes, 

In their own bright Kathaian bowers, 
■Sparkle such rainbow butterflies. 

That they might fancy the rich flowers 
That round them in the sun lay sighing, 
Had been by magic all set flying ! 
Everything young, everything fair. 
From east and west is blushing there. 
Except — except — O Nourmahal ! 
Thou loveliest, dearest of them all. 
The one whose smile shone out alone. 
Amidst a world the only one ! 
Whose light, among so many lights. 
Was like that star, on starry nights, 
The seaman singles from the sky. 
To steer his bark forever by ! 
Thou wert not there — so Selim thought, 

And everything seem'd drear without thee ; 
But, ah ! thou wert, thou wert, — and brought 

Thy charm of song all fresh about thee. 
Mingling unnoticed with a band 
Of lutanists from many a land, 



( 257 ) 

And veil'd by such a mask as shades 
The features of young Arab maids, — 
A mask that leaves but one eye free,^ 
To do its best in witchery, — 
She roved, with beating heart, around. 

And waited, trembling, for the minute 
When she might try if still the sound 

Of her loved lute had magic in it. 

The board was spread with fruits and wine, 
With grapes of gold, like those that shine 
On Casbin's hills ; — pomegranates full 

Of melting sweetness, and the pears 
And sunniest apples that Caubul 

In all its thousand gardens bears ; 
Plantains, the golden and the green, 
Malaya's nectar'd mangusteen ; 
Prunes of Bokara, and sweet nuts 

From the far groves of Samarcand, 
And Basra dates, and apricots, 

Seed of the sun, from Iran's land ; — 
With rich conserve of Visna cherries. 
Of orange flowers, and of those berries 
That, wild and fresh, the young gazelles 
Peed on in Erac's rocky dells. 
All these in richest vases smile, 

In baskets of pure santal-wood 
And urns of porcelain from that isle 

Sunk underneath the Indian flood. 
Whence oft the lucky diver brings 
Vases to grace the halls of kings. 
Wines too, of every clime and hue, 
.Around their liquid lustre threw : 

1 See the illustration on the following page. 






s^^ 



ir^ I 



Amber RosoUi, — the bright 

dew 
From vineyards of the Green 

Sea gushing; 
And Shiraz wine, that richly ran 
As if that jewel, large and rare. 
The ruby, for which Kublai-Khan 
Offer'd a city's wealth, was blushing 
Melted within the goblets there ! 






r'< 






And amply Selim quaffs of each, 
I And seems resolved the floods shall reach 
His inward heart, — shedding around 

A genial deluge, as they run, 
[That soon shall leave no spot undrown'd, 

For Love to rest his wings upon. 
He little knew how blest the boy 

Can float upon a goblet's streams, 
'Lighting them with his smile of joy; — 

As bards have seen him, in their dreams, 
, Down the blue Ganges laughing glide 
In Upon a rosy lotus wreath, 
(Catching new lustre from the tide 

That with his image shone beneath. 
But what are cups without the aid 

Of song to speed them as they flow? 
And see — a lovely Georgian maid, 

With all the bloom, the freshen'd glow, 
Of her own country maidens' looks, 
When warm they rise from Teflis' brooks ; 
And with an eye whose restless ray. 

Full, floating, dark, — oh, he who knows 




His heart is weak, of heaven should pray 
To guard him from such eyes as those ! 
With a voluptuous wildness flings 
Her snowy hand across the strings 
Of a syrinda, and thus sings : — 

Come hither, come hither, — by night 
and by day. 
We Hnger in pleasures that never 
^SfM ^re gone ; 

Like the waves of the summer, as one 
dies away, 
Another as sweet and as shining comes on. 
And the love that is o'er, in expiring, gives birth 

To a new one as warm, as unequall'd in bliss ; 
And, oh ! if there be an elysium on earth, 
It is this, it is this. 

Here maidens are sighing, and fragrant their sigh 
As the flower of the Amra just oped by a bee ; 

And precious their tears as that rain from the sky 
Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea. 




Oh ! think what the kiss and the smile must be worth, 

When the sigh and the tear are so perfect in bliss ; 
And own if there be an elysium on earth. 
It is this, it is this ! 



( 26o ) 

Here sparkles the nectar that, hallow'd by love, 
Could draw down those angels of old from their 
sphere, 
Who for wine of this earth left the fountains above, 
And forgot heaven's stars for the eyes we have 
here. 
And, bless'd with the odor our goblet gives forth. 
What spirit the sweets of his Eden would miss? 
For, oh ! if there be an elysium on earth, 
It is this, it is this ! 

The Georgian's song was scarcely mute, 

When the same measure, sound for sound, 
Was caught up by another lute. 

And so divinely breathed around, 
That all stood hush'd and wondering. 

And turn'd and look'd into the air, 
As if they thought to see the wing 

Of Israfil, the Angel, there ; — 
So powerfully on every soul 
That new, enchanted measure stole. 
While now a voice, sweet as the note 
Of the charm'd lute, was heard to float 
Along its chords, and so entwine 

Its sound with theirs, that none knew whether 
The voice or lute was most divine. 

So wondrously they went together : — 

There 's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told. 
When two, that are link'd in one heavenly tie, 

With heart never changing and brow never cold. 
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die ! 

One hour of a passion so sacred is worth 

Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss ; 

And, oh ! if there be an elysium on earth, 
It is this, it is this ! 



( 26l ) 

'T was not the air, 't was not the words, 
But that deep magic in the chords 
And in the lips, that gave such power 
As music knew not till that hour. 
At once a hundred voices said, 
" It is the mask'd Arabian maid ! " 
While Selim, who had felt the strain 
Deepest of any, and had lain 
Some minutes rapt, as in a trance, 

After the fairy sounds were o'er, 
Too inly touch'd for utterance, 

Now motion'd with his hand for more : - 

Fly to the desert, fly with me ! 

Our Arab tents are rude for thee ; 

But, oh ! the choice what heart can doubt 

Of tents with love, or thrones without? 

Our rocks are rough, but smiling there 
Th' acacia waves her yellow hair. 
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less 
For flowering in a wilderness. 

Our sands are bare, but down their slope 

The silvery-footed antelope 

As gracefully and gayly springs 

As o'er the marble courts of kings. 

Then come — thy Arab maid will be 
The loved and lone acacia-tree, 
The antelope, whose feet shall bless 
With their light sound thy loneliness. 

Oh ! there are looks and tones that dart 
An instant sunshine through the heart, — 
As if the soul that minute caught 
Some treasure it through life had sought; 



i 



As if the ver}' lips and eyes 
Predestined to have all our sighs, 
And never be forgot again. 
Sparkled and spoke before us then. 



Then fiy with me, — if thou hast known 
No other flame, nor falsely thrown 
A gem away, that thou hadst sworn 
Should ever in thy heart be worn. 



So came thy every glance and tone. 
When first on me they breathed and shone 
New as if brought from other spheres, 
Yet welcome as if loved for years ! 



Come, if the love thou hast for me 
Is pure and fresh as mine for thee, — 
Fresh as the fountain underground. 
When first 't is by the lapwing found. 




But if for me thou dost forsake 
Some other maid, and rudely break 
Her worshipp'd image from its base. 
To give to me the ruin'd place, — 

Then fare thee well — I 'd rather make 
My bower upon some icy lake 
When thawing suns begin to shine, 
Than trust to love so false as thine ! 



There was a pathos in this lay, 

That, e'en without enchantment's art, 
Would instantly have found its way 
Deep into Selim's burning heart; 
But breathing, as it did, a tone 
To earthly lutes and lips unknown. 
With every chord fresh from the touch 
Of Music's spirit, — 'twas too much ! 
Starting, he dash'd away the cup, — 
Which, all the time of this sweet air. 





His hand had held, untasted, up, 

As if 't were fix'd by magic there, — 
And naming her, so long unnamed. 
So long unseen, wildly exclaim'd, 
" O Nourmahal ! O Nourmahal ! 

Hadst thou but sung this witching straiJi 
I could forget — forgive thee all. 
And never leave those eyes again." 



The mask is off — the charm is wrought —-,,,^^^ liiai^A] 

And Selim to his heart has caught, /*>^,--^^'^^ 

In blushes, more than ever bright, 9^X-- *''^ ,\'y 

His Nourmahal, his Haram's Light ! ' ~ - ' : , 

And well do vanish'd frowns enhance V'*^ 

' - " . ■- ^"^ 

The charm of every brighten'd glance; * C • "'^i«^J>Tci 
And dearer seems each dawning smile 
For having lost its light awhile ; 
And, happier ncJw for all her sighs 

As on his arm her head reposes. 
She whispers him, with laughing eyes, 

" Remember, love, the Feast of Roses ! " 



K^; 





( 264 ) 

Fadladeen, at the conclusion of this light rhap- 
sody, took occasion to sum up his opinion of the 
young Cashmerian's poetry, — of which, he trusted, 
they had that evening heard the last. Having reca- 
pitulated the epithets, " frivolous," " inharmonious," 
" nonsensical," he proceeded to say that, viewing 
it in the most favorable light, it resembled one of 
those Maldivian boats to which the Princess had 
alluded in the relation of her dream, — a slight, 
gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, 
and with nothing but vapid sweets and faded flow- 
ers on board. The profusion, indeed, of flowers 
and birds which this Poet had ready on all occa- 
sions — not to mention dews, gems, etc. — was a 
most oppressive kind of opulence to his hearers, 
and had the unlucky eff"ect of giving to his style all 
the glitter of the flower-garden without its method, 
and all the flutter of the aviary without its song. 
In addition to this, he chose his subjects badly, 
and was always most inspired by the worst parts 
of them. The charms of paganism, the merits of 
rebellion, — these were the themes honored with his 
particular enthusiasm ; and, in the poem just recited, 
one of his most palatable passages was in praise of 



( 26s ) ■ 

that beverage of the Unfaithful, wine, — " being, per- 
haps," said he, relaxing into a smile, as conscious 
of his own character in the haram on this point, 
"one of those bards whose fancy owes all its illu- 
mination to the grape, like that painted porcelain, so 
curious and so rare, whose images are only visible 
when liquor is poured into it." Upon the whole, 
it was his opinion, from the specimens which they 
had heard, and which, he begged to say, were the 
most tiresome part of the journey, that, whatever 
other merits this well-dressed young gentleman might 
possess, poetry was by no means his proper avoca- 
tion ; " and indeed," concluded the critic, " from his 
fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture 
to suggest that a florist or a bird-catcher is a much 
more suitable calling for him than a poet." 

They had now begun to ascend those barren 
mountains which separate Cashmere from the rest 
of India; and as the heats were intolerable, and the 
time of their encampment limited to the few hours 
necessary for refreshment and repose, there was an 
end to all their delightful evenings, and Lalla Rookh 
saw no more of Feramorz. She now felt that her 
short dream of happiness was over, and that she 
had nothing but the recollection of its few blissful 



"%. 




hours, like 
the one draught 
of sweet water that 
serves the camel across 
the wilderness, to be 
her heart's refreshment 
during the dreary waste 
of life that was before 
her. The blight that 
had fallen upon her 
spirit soon found its way 
to her cheek, and her 
ladies saw with 
regret — though 
, not without 



iTRaser,^^ 



( 268 ) 

at the very moment of all when she had most need 
of it. What must the King of Bucharia feel, when, 
instead of the lively and beautiful Lalla Rookh whom 
the Poets of Delhi had described as more perfect than 
the divinest images in the House of Azor, he should 
receive a pale and inanimate victim, upon whose 
cheek neither health nor pleasure bloomed, and from 
whose eyes Love had fled, — to hide himself in her 
heart! 

If anything could have charmed away the melan- 
choly of her spirits, it would have been the fresh 
airs and enchanting scenery of that Valley, which 
the Persians so justly called the Unequalled. But 
neither the coolness of its atmosphere, so luxurious 
after toiling up those bare and burning mountains ; 
neither the splendor of the minarets and pagodas, 
that shone out from the depth of its woods, nor the 
grottos, hermitages, and miraculous fountains which 
make every spot of that region holy ground ; neither 
the countless waterfalls, that rush into the Valley from 
all those high and romantic mountains that encir- 
cle it, nor the fair city on the Lake, whose houses, 
roofed with flowers, appeared at a distance like one 
vast and variegated parterre ; — not all these wonders 
and glories of the most lovely country under the 
sun could steal her heart for a minute from those 
sad thoughts, which but darkened and grew bitterer 
every step she advanced. 



( 269 ) 

The gay pomps and processions that met her 
upon her entrance into the Valley, and the magnifi- 
cence with which the roads all along were decorated, 
did honor to the taste and gallantry of the young 
King. It was night when they approached the city; 
and for the last two miles they had passed under 
arches, thrown from hedge to hedge, festooned with 
only those rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, 
more precious than gold, is distilled, and illuminated 
in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the triple- 
colored tortoise-shell of Pegu. Sometimes, from a 
dark wood by the side of the road, a display of fire- 
works would break out so sudden and so brilliant, 
that a Brahmin might think he saw that grove in 
whose purple shade the God of Battles was born, 
bursting into a flame at the moment of his birth; 
■while, at other times, a quick and playful irradiation 
continued to brighten all the fields and gardens by 
which they passed, forming a line of dancing lights 
along the horizon, like the meteors of the north as 
they are seen by those hunters who pursue the white 
and blue foxes on the confines of the Icy Sea. 

These arches and fireworks delighted the ladies of 
the Princess exceedingly; and, with their usual good 
logic, they deduced from his taste for illuminations 
that the King of Bucharia would make the most 
exemplary husband imaginable. Nor, indeed, could 
Lalla Rookh herself help feeling the kindness and 



splendor with which the young bridegroom welcomed 
her; but she also felt how painful is the gratitude 
which kindness from those we cannot love excites, 
and that their best blandishments come over the 
heart with all that chilling and deadly sweetness 
which we can fancy in the cold, odoriferous wind 
that is to blow over this earth in the last day. 

The marriage was fixed for the morning after her 
arrival, when she was, for the first time, to be pre- 
sented to the monarch in that imperial palace be- 
yond the Lake, called the Shalimar. Though a 
night of more wakeful and anxious thought had 
never been passed in the Happy Valley before, yet 
when she rose in the morning and her ladies came 
round her, to assist in the adjustment of the bridal 
ornaments, they thought they had never seen her 
look half so beautiful. What she had lost of the 
bloom and radiancy of her charms was more than 
made up by that intellectual expression, that soul in 
the eyes, which is worth all the rest of loveliness. 




When they had tinged her fingers with the henna leaf, 
and placed upon her brow a small coronet of jewels, 
of the shape worn by the ancient Queens of Bucharia, 
they flung over her head the rose-colored bridal veil, 
and she proceeded to the barge that was to convey 
her across the Lake; — first kissing, with a mournful 
look, the little amulet of cornelian which her father 
had hung about her neck at parting. 

The morning was as fair as the maid upon whose 
nuptials it rose; and the shining Lake, all covered 
-with boats, the minstrels playing upon the shores of 
the islands, and the crowded summer-houses on the 
green hills around, with shawls and banners waving 
from their roofs, presented such a picture of animated 
rejoicing, as only she, who was the object of it all, 
did not feel with transport. To Lalla Rookh alone 
it was a melancholy pageant; nor could she have 
even borne to look upon the scene, were it not for a 
Tiope that, among the crowds around, she might once 
Tnore perhaps catch a glimpse of Feramorz. So 
much was her imagination haunted by this thought 
that there was scarcely an islet or boat she passed, 




» 



( 272 ) 

at which her heart did not flutter with a momentary- 
fancy that he was there. Happy, in her eyes, the 
humblest slave upon wliom the hght of his dear looks 
fell ! — In the barge immediately after the Princess 
was Fadladeen, with his silken curtains thrown widely 
apart, that all might have the benefit of his august 
presence, and with his head full of the speech he was 
to deliver to the King, " concerning Feramorz, and 
literature, and the chabuk, as connected therewith." 

They had now entered the canal which leads from 
the Lake to the splendid domes and saloons of the 
Shalimar, and glided on through gardens ascending 
from each bank, full of flowering shrubs that made 
the air all perfume; while from the middle of the 
canal rose jets of water, smooth and unbroken, to 
such a dazzling height, that they stood like pillars 
of diamond in the sunshine. After sailing under the 
arches of various saloons, they at length arrived at 
the last and most magnificent, where the monarch 
awaited the coming of his bride ; and such was the 
agitation of her heart and frame, that it was with dif- 
ficulty she walked up the marble steps, which were 
covered with cloth of gold for her ascent from the 
barge. At the end of the hall stood two thrones, as 
precious as the Cerulean Throne of Koolburga, on 
one of which sat Aliris, the youthful King of Bucha- 



( 273 ) 

ria, and on the other was, in a few minutes, to be 
placed the most beautiful Princess in the world. 
Immediately upon the entrance of Lalla Rookh into 
the saloon, the monarch descended from his throne 
to meet her ; but scarcely had he time to take her 
hand in his, when she screamed with surprise and 
fainted at his feet. It was Feramorz himself that 
stood before her! — Feramorz was himself the Sov- 
ereign of Bucharia, who in this disguise had accom- 
panied his young bride from Delhi, and, having won 
her love as an humble minstrel, now amply deserved 
to enjoy it as a king. 

The consternation of Fadladeen at this discovery 
was, for the moment, almost pitiable. But change 
of opinion is a resource too convenient in courts for 
this experienced courtier not to have learned to avail 
himself of it. His criticisms were all, of course, re- 
canted instantly; he was seized with an admiration 
of the King's verses, as unbounded as, he begged 
him to believe, it was disinterested ; and the follow- 
ing week saw him in possession of an additional 
place, swearing by all the saints of Islam that never 
had there existed so great a poet as the monarch, 
Aliris, and ready to prescribe his favorite regimen of 
the chabuk for every man, woman, and child that 
dared to think otherwise. 




'^.' 




Of the happiness of 

the King and Queen of Bucharia, 

after such a beginning, there can be 

but little doubt; and, among the lesser 

symptoms, it is recorded of Lalla Rookh, 

that to the day of her death, in memory 

of their delightful journey, she never 

called the King by any other name 

than Feramorz. 






^/ 



)Lf 



/b 



-ZtX^'?'*^ 



